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PROTESTANT  ENDURANCE 


UNDER 


POPISH    CRUELTY 


A   NAERATIYE    OP 


THE  EEFOEMATION  IN  SPAIN. 


J.    C.    M'COAN,    ESQ., 


OF  THE  MIDDLE  TEMPLE. 


LONDON : 
BINNS   AND   GOODWIN,   44,  FLEET  STREET; 

AND  19,  CHEAP  STREET,  BATH. 
EDINBURGH  :   OLIVER  AND  BOYD.       DUBLIN  :   J.  m'gLASHAN. 


LOAN  STACK 


bath:  printed  by  binns  and  GOODV/1N. 


PKEFAOE 


The  following  pages  require  but  little  by  way  of 
preface.  They  were  written  nearly  four  years  ago, , 
with  a  view  to  publication  in  another  form ;  but, 
although  half  the  period  fixed  by  Horatian  prescript 
has  thus  nearly  elapsed,  they  have  undergone  no 
alteration  either  in  arrangement  or  substance.  The 
object  of  the  author  was,  to  present  a  short  but 
complete  outline  of  the  history  of  Protestantism  in 
Spain;  a  subject  on  which,  at  that  time,  only  one 
book — and  that  much  more  comprehensive  in  its 
purpose — was  conveniently  within  the  reach  of  the 
English  readey.     Since   then,  a   translation  of  De 

784 


IV  PREFACE. 

Castro's  Historia  de  hs  Protestantes  Espanoles  has 
been  published  in  London,  and  still  more  recently 
one  of  another  work  on  the  same  subject  and  by 
the  same  author.  In  neither  of  them,  however,  has 
the  writer  of  the  present  volume  met  with  any  new 
information  which  could  ha.ve  materially,  if  it  all, 
improved  it,  had  such  been  in  existence  at  the  time 
it  was  written.  He  need  hardly  acknowledge  his 
great  obligations  to  Dr.  McCrie's  History  of  the 
Reformation  in  Spain  (the  work  above  referred  to), 
as  nothing  of  any  worth  could  be  written  on  this 

.subject,  without  being  more  or  less  indebted  to  that 
accurate  and  elegant  work.  The  extent  of  these 
obligations  is  only  partially  indicated  by  the  refer- 
ences made  to  it  in  the  foot-notes.  Its  chief  use, 
however,  has  been  to  guide  to  the  original  sources 
of  information,  which  have  been  consulted  and  fol- 
lowed in  nearly  every  instance  referred  to  in  the 
notes,  and  in  many  others  where  acknowledgment 
has  not  been  deemed  necessary.     Whilst  avoiding  a 

.  lengthy  parade  of  references,  enough  have  been  given 
to  show  that,  whatever  may  be  the  ^ults  or  short- 


PREFACE.  V 

comings  of  the  book,  they  have  not  arisen  from 
wilful  avoidance  of  labour  on  the  part  of  the  writer. 
Fortunately,  however,  the  facts  contained  in  the  nar- 
rative possess  an  intrinsic  interest,  which  cannot  be 
materially  lessened  by  the  other  defects  which  belong 
to  it,  and  of  which  few  will  discover  more  than 
himself. 

London,  Sept.  1853. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE.' 
HISTORICAL     SKETCH     OF    SPAIN    PREVIOUS    TO    THE    COM- 
MENCEMENT OF  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Earliest  Inhabitants.  Spain  a  Roman  Province.  The 
Visigoths.  Saracenic  Invasion.  Pelago.  Kingdoms 
of  Aragon,  Navarre,  Portugal,  and  Castile.  Moorish 
Kingdom  of  Granada.  Peter  the  Cruel.  Henry  II. 
John  I.  Henry  III.  John  II.  Henry  IV.  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella.  Conquest  of  Granada.  Colum- 
bus. Annexation  of  Naples  to  the  Spanish  Crown. 
Charles  V.     Civil  Polity  of  Spain 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

OUTLINE    OF    SPANISH    ECCLESIASTICAL    HISTORY    PREVIOUS 
TO  THE   REFORMATION. 

The  Gospel,  when  and  by  whom  first  preached  in  the 
Peninsula.  The  Early  Spanish  Church,  its  Doctrine, 
Government,  and  Worship.  First  acknowledgment 
of  Romish  Supremacy.  The  Vaudois.  Corruption  of 
the  Spanish  Clergy.  Reforms  attempted  by  Cardinal 
Ximenez 22 


VUl  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  III, 

OBSTACLES  TO  THE  SUCCESS  OF  THE  REFOEMED  DOCTRINES 
IN  SPAIN. 

The  Inquisition,  when  and  by  whom  founded.  Its 
Reform.  Its  modes  of  proceeding.  Persecution  of 
the  Jews.  Establishment  of  the  Holy  Office  in  Cas- 
tile. Torquemada.  The  Bible  forbidden.  Unsuc- 
cessful efforts  of  the  Cortes  to  suppress  the  Inquisition. 
Other  obstacles  to  the  Reformation     44 

CHAPTER  IV. 

COMMENCEMENT  OP  THE   REFORMATION. 

Introduction  of  the  Reformed  Doctrines.  Juan  Valdes. 
Rodrigo  de  Valer,  Egidio.  Vargas.  Constantino 
Ponce.  Arrest  and  trial  of  Egidio.  His  imprison- 
ment, liberation,  and  death.  The  Reformed  Doctrines 
in  Valladolid.  Francisco  San  Roman.  Domingo  de 
Roxas.     Augustin  Cazalla.    Spanish  divines  abroad  ...     70 

CHAPTER  V. 

CIRCUMSTANCES  WHICH    FAVOURED    THE    REFORMATION   IN 
SPAIN. 

Spanish  Protestants  in  Germany  and  the  Netherlands. 
The  brothers  Enzinas.  Martyrdom  of  Jayme  in 
Rome.  Tragedy  of  Juan  Diaz.  Translation  of  the 
New  Testament  by  Francisco  Enzinas.  Juan  Perez. 
Cassiodoro  de  Reyna.     His  translation  of  the  Bible. 

•  Cypriano  de  Valera.  Juan  Lizzarago.  Efforts  of  the 
Inquisition  to  prevent  the  circulation  of  the  Scrip- 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGE. 

tures.  Effects  produced  by  their  circulation.  Valla- 
dolid  and  Seville  the  head-quarters  of  the  Reformed 
Movement    101 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PROGRESS   OF  THE  REFORMED   DOCTRINES. 

Return  of  Constantine  Ponce  to  Seville.  He  is  ap- 
pointed Canon  Magistral.  His  writings.  Maria 
Gomez.  The  storm,  for  a  time,  warded  off.  Christo- 
bal  Losada.  Don  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon.  Domingo 
de  Guzman.  Spread  of  the  Reformed  Doctrines 
amongst  the  monasteries.  The  Convent  of  St.  Isidro 
del  Campo.  Garcia  de  Arias.  Juan  de  Regla.  Fran- 
cisco de  Villalba.  Reasons  of  Charles  for  opposing 
Protestantism.  Extensive  spread  of  the  Lutheran 
Doctrines  around  Valladolid.  Their  progress  in 
Granada,  Murcia,  Valencia.  In  the  kingdom  of  Ara- 
gon.     The  inherent  power  of  Christianity  illustrated ..  120 

CHAPTER  VIL 

DISCOVERY    OF    THE    PROTESTANTS,   AND   SUPPRESSION    OP 
THE   REFORMATION. 

Abdication  of  Charles  V.  Philip  II.  His  character. 
Powers  of  the  Inquisition  increased.  Papal  bulls. 
Arrest  of  Juan  Hernandez.  The  Protestants  informed 
against  in  Valladolid  and  Seville.  Preparations. 
Wholesale  arrests.  Misery  of  the  victims.  Discovery 
of  Constantine  Ponce's  MSS.  His  sufferings  and 
death.  Family  of  Fernando  Nugnez.  Public  protest 
against  Inquisitorial  injustice.     First  auto   in  Valla- 

dohd.     The  second    137 

b 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIIL 

SUPPRESSIVE  MEASURES  CONTINUED   AND   COMPLETED. 

Few  recantations  amongst  the  prisoners  in  Seville. 
The  first  auto.  The  second.  Two  Englishmen 
burned.  Third  auto  in  Seville.  Autos  in  Toledo. 
In  Saragossa,  Logrono,  and  Barcelona.  Huguenots. 
Heterodox  horses.  Autos  in  Granada.  Protestantism 
extinct 168 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SPAIN   SINCE   THE   REFORMATION. 

Few  escapes.  Philip  III.  The  House  of  Bourbon. 
Ignorance  and  gloom.  Don  Miguel  Solano.  His 
imprisonment  and  death.  Neglect  of  education  and 
religion  during  the  wars.  Arrest  of  Ferdinand  VII. 
at  Bayonne.  The  Inquisition  abolished  by  the  Cortes. 
Return  of  Ferdinand,  and  re- establishment  of  the 
Holy  Office,  Death  of  Ferdinand,  and  final  abolition 
of  the  Inquisition.  A  spirit  of  religious  inquiry.  The 
last  death  by  fire.  Private  executions.  Effects  of 
Inquisitorial  despotism.  Mr.  George  Borrow.  Print- 
ing of  the  New  Testament.  Difficulties  met  with  in 
its  circulation.  Opposition  from  the  clergy.  Results 
of  the  effort.  Spain  in  1841.  Smugglers.  Strange 
evangelists.  Eagerness  for  the  Bible.  Private  im- 
portations.    Conclusion   188 

Appendix   209 


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PKOTESTANT   ENDUEANCE 

UNDER 

POPISH  CRUELTY. 


dajto  |trst. 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OP  SPAIN  PREVIOUS  TO  THE  COMMENCEMENT 
OF   THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY. 

It  may  not  be  uninteresting  or  unprofitable  to  the 
general  reader,  if  we  introduce  our  short  account  of 
Protestantism  in  the  Peninsula  by  a  slight  sketch  of 
the  history  of  the  country  down  to  the  time  of  the 
Keformation,  when  Protestantism,  strictly  speaking, 
first  showed  itself  in  Spain. 

At  what  time,  or  by  whom,  the  Peninsula  was 
first  peopled,  is  a  question  on  which  modern  his- 
torians profess  themselves  unable  to  throw  any 
certain  light.     Various  hypotheses   have  been   put 

B 


2  TRADITIONAL   ANTIQUITY   OF   SPAIN. 

forward,  but  all  equally  unsupported  by  satisfactory 
evidence.  With  a  few  unimportant  exceptions, 
Spanish  writers  have  claimed  for  their  nation  an 
antiquity  to  which  but  few,  if  any,  others  have 
made  the  smallest  pretensions.  Taking  for  their 
authorities  the  scattered  and  hardly  intelligible 
hints  to  be  gleaned  from  the  old  poets  and  geogra- 
phers, and  in  some  degree  from  the  rich  stores  of 
traditionary  fiction  in  the  middle  ages,  they  have 
at  various  times  endeavoured  to  establish  the  exist- 
ence of  a  thriving,  and,  to  a  great  degree,  cultivated 
people  in  the  Spanish  peninsula,  when  all  the  rest  of 
Europe  was  either  a  desert  waste,  or,  at  best,  over- 
run here  and  there  by  migratory  hordes  of  barba- 
rians. They  have  laboured  hard  to  prove  that 
Tubal,  the  grandson  of  Noah,  colonized  the  country 
2163  years  before  Christ;  and  that  the  patriarch 
himself  visited  the  .founder,  and  helped  him  in  the 
great  work  of  building  towns  and  cities,  and  in 
making  laws  for  his  people,  whose  posterity  were 
governed  by  a  long  line  of  illustrious  kings,  ages 
before  history  began  to  record  the  actions  of  men. 
All  this,  of  course,  goes  for  nothing.  We  must  look 
for  information  from  some  more  reliable  and  trust- 
worthy sources.  The  Greek  and  Roman  historians, 
our  only  authorities,  mention  the  Iberians  as  the 
earliest  inhabitants  of  Spain.    These  were  disturbed 


FIRST   INHABITANTS. TRADE.  3 

in  their  possessions*  by  the  Celtae,  a  nation  who 
crossed  over  the  Pyrenees  from  Gaul,  or,  according 
to  some,  passed  over  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  from 
the  opposite  coast  of  Africa.  After  a  time,  the  two 
races  amalgamated,  and  founded  one  nation,  which 
we  meet  with  in  history  under  the  name  of  Celtibe- 
rians.  From  the  remotest  ages,  the  rich  produce 
of  the  mines  and  fertile  soil  of  the  Peninsula  had 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  Phoenicians.  For 
a  long  time,  however,  these  enterprising  navigators 
and  traders  had  only  a  few  unimportant  settlements 
along  the  coasts  of  Boetica.  From  these  they 
bartered  with  the  inhabitants,  giving  the  rich  fabrics 
and  spices  of  Asia  in  exchange  for  the  valuable 
mineral  productions  of  Spain.  They  gradually  pene- 
trated into  the  interior,  and  founded  some  strong 
towns,  whence  they  carried  on  a  still  more  profitable 
trade. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  mercantile  success  of 
the  Phoenicians  soon  attracted  the  traders  of  the  other 
nations  of  Asia  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  Phoeni- 
cians were  not  long  suffered  to  enjoy  their  profitable 
monopoly,  but  were  obliged  to  share  their  trade  with 
others  whom  their  successful  example  stimulated  to 
pursue  the  same  advantages.     Amongst  the  earliest 

*  According  to  the  probably  extravagant  reckoning  of 
Olcampo,  about  1000  years  b.c. 


4  CARTHAGINIANS,   ROMANS, 

of  these  competitors  were  several  from  various  parts 
of  Greece,  of  whom  the  Ehodians  and  Phoceans  were 
the  most  successful.  The  object  of  both  Phoenicians 
and  Greeks  was  purely  commercial,  and  consequently 
they  aimed  at  establishing  no  more  permanent 
footing  in  the  country  than  would  enable  them 
to  trade  profitably  with  the  inhabitants.  They  were 
followed  by  the  Carthaginians,  who  took  Ghadir 
(the  modern  Cadiz)  from  the  Phoenicians,  and  thence 
successively  under  their  generals  Hamilcar,  his  son- 
in-law  Hasdrubal,  and  son  Hannibal,  penetrated 
into  the  interior  with  a  view  to  the  complete  sub- 
jugation of  the  Peninsula.  The  last-mentioned 
general  successfully  made  war  against  the  Olcades, 
Vaccseans,  and  Carpetanians,  by  whose  overthrow 
the  Carthaginians  became  masters  of  Spain  as  far 
as  the  river  Iberus  (the  modern  Ebro),  with  the 
exception  of  the  town  of  Sargentum,  which  was 
in  alliance  with  Eome.  The  taking  of  this  town, 
by  Hannibal,  led  to  the  second  Punic  war  between 
the  two  rival  republics. 

After  a  series  of  alternate  victories  and  defeats, 
the  Carthaginians  were  driven  from  the  Peninsula 
by  Scipio  Africanus,  and  Spain  became  a  Roman 
province.  Several  of  the  native  tribes,  however, 
refused  to  submit  to  the  Roman  yoke,  and  main- 
tained their  independence  for  more  than  a  century. 


AND   VISIGOTHS,    IN   SPAIN.  5 

Tliey  fouglit  long  and  obstinately,  but  having  no 
union  amongst  themselves,  they  were  gradually 
subdued,  and,  by  the  time  of  Augustus,  the  whole 
country  was  brought  under  the  dominion  of  Rome. 

Early  in  the  fifth  century,  after  the  colossal  empire 
had  fallen  under  the  weight  of  its  own  greatness, 
and  its  sun  had  set  for  ever  in  sanguinary  turbulence 
and  gloom,  Spain  was  overrun  by  hordes  of  Visigoths 
from  the  north-west  of  Europe,  under  their  king 
Adolph,  who  established  himself  in  Catalonia.  It 
was  not,  however,  till  the  latter  part  of  the  century 
that  the  whole  of  the  Peninsula  was  brought  com- 
pletely under  the  sway  of  a  Gothic  king.  Its  his- 
tory, under  these  monarchs,  is  a  tissue  of  murders, 
usurpations,  and  all  the  evils  attending  an  elective 
monarchy — as  it  became  —  among  an  uncivilized 
people. 

About  AD.  555,  one  of  these  sovereigns,  who 
had  climbed  to  the  throne  by  the  assassination 
of  his  predecessor,  purchased  the  support  of  Justinian, 
the  eastern  emperor,  by  consenting  to  hold  his 
dominions  as  a  fief  of  the  empire.  This  vassalage 
was  not  thrown  oft'  till  the  time  of  Leuvigild,  one  of 
the  best  and  greatest  of  the  Gothic  kings.  Under 
his  sway,  the  country  became,  for  a  time,  quiet  and 
prosperous,  but  at  his  death  it  relapsed  into  its 
former  condition ;  the  old  scenes  of  bloodshed  were 


e  MOSLEMS   IN   SPAIN. 

re-enacted  by  the  rival  candidates  for  the  throne, 
to  such  an  extent  that,  within  117  years  from  the 
death  of  Leuvigild,  Spain  had  seventeen  successive 
monarchs.  Such  a  state  of  things  could  not  but 
enfeeble  the  internal  condition  of  the  country,  and 
render  it  a  ready  prey  to  invaders  from  without. 
Having  been  free  from  foreign  enemies  for  so  long 
a  time,  military  discipline  had  been  neglected,  and 
under  the  effeminating  influence  of  the  genial  clime, 
and  of  the  luxurious  habits  into  which  they  had 
fallen,  the  once  hardy  and  warlike  descendants  of 
Theodoric  had  become  too  weak  to  offer  any  pro- 
tracted or  effectual  resistance  when  invaded  by  the 
enthusiastic  warriors  of  Mahomet.  These  brave  and 
hardy  denizens  of  the  Arabian  deserts  had  already 
brought  Egypt,  Palestine,  and  Syria,  under  the  sway 
of  the  Prophet  and  his  successors. 

During  the  reign  of  Roderic,  these  proselyting 
warriors,  whose  only  alternative  to  the  vanquished 
was  the  faith  of  Islam  or  the  sword,  crossed  over 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  under  the  victorious  Tarik 
Ibn  Zeyad,  who,  with  an  army  of  12,000  men, 
opposed  to  80,000,  under  Roderic,  gained  the 
battle  on  the  banks  of  the  Guadalete,  near  Xeres, 
which  decided  the  fate  of  the  Gothic  monarchy  in 
Spain.  The  whole  country  speedily  submitted  to 
the  conqueror.     Toledo,  the  Gothic  capital,  opened 


SPEEDY   CONQUEST.  7 

her  gates,  stipulating  only  for  freedom  of  religion 
and  internal  government ;  and  within  almost  as 
short  a  time  as  a  traveller  could  traverse  Spain,  the 
white  tents  of  the  victorious  Moslems  were  planted 
on  the  shores  of  Biscay  ;  and  Spain,  after  remaining 
for  nearly  three  centuries  in  the  possession  of  the 
Visigoths,  fell  under  the  yoke  of  the  Saracens  in  the 
year  712.  Only  a  valiant  remnant  of  the  Gothg 
maintained  their  independence  in  the  rugged  and 
inaccessible  mountains  of  Asturia. 

It  has  been  well  remarked,  that  the  fervid  and 
irresistible  enthusiasm  which  distinguished  the 
youthful  period  of  Mahometanism  might  sufficiently 
account  for  so  speedy  and  remarkable  a  conquest ; 
even  if  we  could  not  assign  as  additional  causes,  the 
internal  factious  which  divided  the  Goths,  the  resent- 
ment of  disappointed  aspirants  after  power,  and  the 
temerity  which  risked  the  fate  of  an  empire  on 
the  chances  of  a  single  battle.  The  mind  of  him 
who  looks  to  nothing  higher  than  the  mere  political 
consequences  of  this  overthrow  of  the  Gothic  mon- 
archy, may  see  in  it  nothing  more  than  one  of  those 
falsely-called  chance  vicissitudes  in  a  nation's  history, 
of  which  the  records  of  the  past  furnish  so  many 
examples;  but  the  wise  and  impartial  observer 
recognizes  in  it  one  of  those  fore-ordained  events 
by  which   the   designs   of  an   all-wise   Providence, 


i  THE   MOORS   BECOME   LUXURIOUS, 

in  reference  to  His  creatures,  are  accomplished 
The  Moslems  opened  up  to  Spain  the  learning 
and  civilization  of  the  East,  of  which,  till  then,  she 
liad  been  ignorant,  and  whose  beneficial  results 
spread,  in  time,  over  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe, 
Outliving  the  long  and  gloomy  night  of  the  middle 
ftges,  and  bursting  forth,  like  the  phoenix  from  her 
ashes,  with  renewed  vigour  at  the  revival  of  literature 
in  the  beginning  of  the  l^th  century,  preparing 
men's  minds  for  the  glorious  "light  and  liberty  of 
the  gospel,"  which  Luther,  under  God,  opened  up 
to  them  two  centuries  later.  The  valiant  remnant 
of  the  Goths,  already  mentioned,  not  only  preserved 
their  national  liberty  and  name  in  the  northern 
mountains,  but  waged  for  centuries  a  successful, 
and  for  the  most  part  oflfensive,  warfare  against 
their  conquerors,  till  the  balance  was  turned  in  their 
favour,  and  the  Moors  were  compelled,  in  their  turn, 
to  maintain  almost  as  obstinate  and  protracted  a 
struggle  for  a  small  portion  of  the  Peninsula,  and 
were  at  last  driven  from  it  entirely. 

But  not  to  anticipate ;  the  victors,  having  firmly 
established  themselves  in  Spain,  gradually,  like  their 
brethren  in  Syria,  fell  away  from  their  simple  and 
self-denying  habits  of  the  desert,  and  lapsed  into 
luxurious  indolence.  In  the  enjoyment  of  the  fruits 
of  their  conquest,  they  forgot  their  few  but  daring 


I 


AND   ABE   CONQUERED    BY   THE   CHRISTIANS. 


enemies  in  the  mountainous  districts  of  the  north, 
and  gave  themselves  up  to  the  cultivation  of  science, 
and  the  erection  of  those  magnificent  mosques  and 
palaces,  the  ruins  of  which  have  outlived  the  dynasty 
of  their  founders,  and  fill  even  yet  the  mind  of  the 
traveller  with  admiration  and  astonishment,  as  he 
wanders  through  the  echoing  halls  of  the  Alhambra, 
or  traverses  the  plains  of  Granada.  Feuds  soon 
broke  out  in  the  kingdom  of  Cordova,  which  was 
speedily  dismembered  by  successful  rebels.  Taking 
advantage  of  these  divisions,  Pelago,  a  Gothic 
nobleman,  began  the  attempt  to  rescue  his  country 
from  the  yoke  of  the  infidel.  He  seized  on  some 
towns  along  the  base  of  the  mountains  in  which  he 
and  his  countrymen  had  taken  refuge,  defeated  the 
forces  sent  against  him,  and  having  gradually 
enlarged  his  dominions,  founded  the  small  kingdom 
of  the  Asturias,  in  which  he  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  Favila,  in  737.  This  prince,  dying  shortly 
after,  was  followed  by  Alfonso,  surnamed  the 
Catholic,  who  made  still  more  extensive  encroach- 
ments on  the  Saracenic  dominions. 

But  the  limits  to  which  we  must  necessarily 
confine  ourselves  in  this  introductory  sketch,  will 
prevent  our  tracing  in  detail  the  history  of  these 
early  struggles  for  the  liberation  of  their  country 
from  the  Moslem  yoke.     We  must  content  ourselves 


10  SPAIN   DIVIDED    INTO    KINGDOMS. 

with  mentioning  the  various  small  kingdoms  into 
which  the  gradually  recovered  territory  was  divided. 
We  shall  notice  them  chronologically  in  the  order 
of  their  foundation. 

According  to  the  best  native  historians,  Garcia 
Ximenes,  a  Cantabrian  noble,  was  proclaimed  king 
in  758,  by  the  inhabitants  of  Soprarbe,  which  became 
in  time  the  foundation  of  the  small  kingdoms  of 
Aragon  and  Navarre.  Half  a  century  later,  Winfred, 
of  the  family  of  the  dukes  of  Aquitaine,  aided  by 
the  emperor  Charlemagne,  founded  the  county  of 
Barcelona.  For  the  next  century  and  a  half,  still 
greater  encroachments  were  made  upon  the  territo- 
ries of  the  Cordovan  monarchs.  The  kingdom  of 
Oviedo,  of  which  Leon  became  the  capital  in  914, 
was  founded,  and  gradually  extended  its  boundary 
to  the  Douro,  and  even  to  the  mountains  of  the 
Guadarrama. 

Again,  in  1005,  the  province  of  Old  Castile  *  was 
formed  into  a  kingdom  by  Sancho  of  Navarre.  This 
province  had  belonged  to  the  kingdom  of  Leon,  but 
its  separation  was  only  temporary,  for  by  the  death 
of  Bermudo  III.,  of  Leon,  Ferdinand  (the  son  of 
Sancho)  of  Castile,  became,  in  right  of  marriage  with 
his  sister,  master  of  the  united  monarchy.     Towards 

*  Or  Castella,  called  so  from  the  numerous  castles  erected 
for  its  defence  by  Alfonso  I. 


FOUK   CHRISTIAN   AND    ONE    MAHOMETAN.         11 

ttie  end  of  this  century,  Henry  de  Besanyon,  a  knight 
of  the  house  of  Burgundy,  aided  by  Alfonso  of 
Castile,  whose  daughter  he  had  married,  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  kingdom  of  Portugal,  which  was 
extended  by  his  son  and  successor  Alfonso  I. 
Shortly  before  this  time  (in  1085),  Toledo  and 
the  neighbouring  districts  had  been  taken  from 
the  Moors  by  Alfonso  III.  of  Castile,  under  whom 
fought  Roderigo  de  Vivar,  the  famous  Cid,  whose 
exploits  have  been  so  celebrated  in  the  old  ballad 
poetry  of  Spain. 

During  the  next  century  and  a  half,  the  Christian 
princes  continued  their  encroachments  on  the  Moor- 
ish territory,  till  at  last,  after  having  lost  Saragossa, 
Badajoz,  Cordova,  and  Valencia,  the  Spanish  Moslems 
were  driven  to  the  mountains  of  Granada,  where  a 
new  kingdom  was  founded  by  Mahomet  Ibnu-1-ahmar 
in  1248. 

Having  thus  very  briefly  enumerated  the  several 
divisions  which  were  made  of  the  territory  recovered 
from  the  Moors,  we  find  the  Peninsula  divided  into 
four  Christian  kingdoms  : — Castile,  Aragon,  Navarre, 
and  Portugal,  and  one  Mahometan,  Granada.  Of 
these,  Castile  and  Aragon,  though  occasionally 
separated,  became  at  last  permanently  united,  and 
formed  the  chief  power  in  the  Peninsula.  The  little 
kingdom  of  Navarre  passed  continually  by  females 


12  CIVIL  DISSENSIONS. 

to  the  Frencli  houses  of  Bigorre,  Champagne, 
Evereux,  Foix,  and  Albret.  Portugal  remained 
distinct,  and  exercised  but  little  influence  beyond 
the  limits  of  its  own  territory.  For  nearly  two 
centuries,  we  almost  lose  sight  of  Granada.  Its 
sovereigns,  either  too  weak,  or  too  much  engaged 
by  internal  feuds,  to  make  any  aggressive  attempts 
on  the  territory  from  which  they  had  been  driven, 
were  compelled  to  content  themselves  with  the 
undisturbed  enjoyment  of  the  finest  province  in 
the  Peninsula. 

The  century  of  Spanish  history  immediately 
following  the  settlement  of  the  Moors  in  Granada, 
was  chiefly  occupied  by  a  series  of  civil  dissensions, 
occurring  too  rapidly  to  be  easily  remembered,  or 
even  understood.  The  first,  however,  of  importance 
that  we  meet  with,  was  a  rebellion  headed  by  Henry, 
Count  of  Transtamara,  against  his  brother  Pedro  IV. 
of  Castile,  justly  surnamed  the  Cruel.  Aided  by  a 
strong  body  of  mercenary  adventurers,  under  the 
command  of  Bertrand  du  Guesclin,  Henry  invaded 
Castile  to  avenge  the  murder  of  his  brother  Don 
Fadrique.  Pedro  was  overpowered,  and  his  rival 
proclaimed  king  at  Burgos  in  1366.  The  deposed 
monarch  fled  to  Bordeaux,  at  that  time  the  capital 
of  the  English  possessions  in  France,  and  induced 
Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  by  the  promise  of  Biscay, 


SUCCESSIVE   MONARCHS.  13 

to  espouse  his  cause.  Edward  entered  Spain,  and, 
at  the  battle  of  JSTavarrette,  defeated  an  army  of 
100,000  men  with  which  Henry  met  him.  Pedro 
was  reinstated  on  the  throne,  and  Henry  fled  over 
the  Pyrenees ;  but  Pedro's  ingratitude  causing  the 
Black  Prince  to  return  to  Guienne,  Henry  again 
appeared,  and  Pedro  lost  his  kingdom  and  life  in 
a  second  contest  in  1369. 

During  nearly  the  whole  of  the  following  half 
century,  under  Henry  II.,  and  his  successors  John  I. 
and  Henry  III.,  the  country  was  tranquil ;  but  this 
golden  period  ceased  at  the  majority  of  John  II. 
A  series  of  conspiracies  and  civil  dissensions,  osten- 
sibly directed  against  his  favourite  Alvaro  de  Luna, 
distracted  the  kingdom  during  the  latter  part  of  this 
prince's  reign.  The  weak  and  fickle  monarch  was 
easily  induced  to  consent  to  the  death  of  his  minister, 
who  had  exercised  an  absolute  sway  over  his  feeble 
master  for  nearly  five  and  thirty  years.  Alvaro  de 
Luna  has  been  compared,  by  a  living  historian,  to ' 
our  English  Strafford,  whom  he  seems  to  have 
strongly  resembled  in  character. 

In  1455,  John  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Henry 
IV.,  one  of  the  weakest  princes,  both  in  mind  and 
body,  that  ever  ascended  a  throne.  His  misrule 
soon  renewed  the  disturbances  of  the  last  reign  j 
and,  after  ten  years  spent  in  civil  war,  Henry  wa? 


14  ISABELLA   AND   JOANNA, 

deposed  by  a  powerful  confederacy  of  his  disaftected 
nobles,  who  placed  Alfonso,  the  king's  brother,  upon 
the  throne.  On  the  death  of  this  young  prince 
three  years  after,  his  sister  Isabella  was  proclaimed 
queen.  She,  however,  to  avoid  the  odium  of  a 
contest  with  her  brother,  agreed  to  a  treaty,  by 
which  the  succession  would  revert  to  her  at  his 
death.  The  next  step  taken  by  the  malcontent 
nobility  was  to  secure  the  marriage  of  Isabella,  who 
was  soon  after  betrothed  to  prince  Ferdinand  of 
Aragon.  Henry  readily  seized  upon  this,  as  a 
fitting  opportunity  for  revoking  his  forced  dis- 
position of  the  crown,  and  restoring  the  direct  line 
of  succession  in  favour  of  his  daughter  Joanna, 
whose  legitimacy  was  very  generally  doubted.  On 
his  death,  which  occurred  five  years  after,  Isabella 
was  raised  to  the  throne.  Her  claims  were  supported 
by  the  majority  of  the  nobles  and  people,  and  by  the 
powerful  assistance  of  Aragon ;  whilst  those  of 
Joanna,  to  whom  the  kingdom  had  been  willed 
by  the  late  king,  were  maintained  by  the  rest  of  the 
nobles,  and  by  Alfonso  V.,  of  Portugal,  to  whom  she 
was  betrothed.  At  the  battle  of  Toro,  fought  in 
1476,  the  Portuguese  king  and  the  partisans  of 
Joanna  were  defeated,  and  her  rival  was  placed  in 
undisputed  possession  of  the  throne  of  Castile.  Three 
years  after,  Ferdinand  succeeded  his  father,  John  II., 


FERDINAND    AND    ISABELLA.  15 

and  the  two  kingdoms  of  Aragon  and  Castile  became 
for  ever  united. 

We  now  enter  upon,  politically  speaking,  one  of 
the  brightest  pages  in  the  history  of  Spain.  Under 
the  wise  and  vigorous  government  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  she  was  raised  into  the  foremost  rank 
of  European  nations.  With  just  laws  impartially 
administered,  and  freed  from  the  internal  dis- 
turbances which  had  so  long  misdirected  the  ener- 
gies, swallowed  up  the  resources,  and  opposed  the 
industry,  of  her  people,  she  rapidly  rose  to  the 
dignity  of  a  first-rate  power.  The  lamp  of  learning, 
which  had  shone  but  feebly  since  the  revival  of 
letters,  was  now  retrimmed,  and  a  new  impetus 
given  to  the  study  of  literature  and  the  arts.  It 
is  true  that  the  authority  of  the  crown  was  much 
more  despotic  than  would  harmonize  with  our  more 
modern  and  enlightened  ideas  of  liberty ;  but  it 
chiefly  operated  against  the  old  feudal  power  of  the 
nobles,  and,  in  this  respect,  rather  increased,  than 
curtailed,  the  real  liberties  of  the  people  at  large. 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella  had  no  sooner  quenched 
the  flames  of  civil  discord  in  their  dominions,  than 
they  resolved  to  give  Europe  a  proof  of  the  .vigour 
which  the  Spanish  monarchy  should  exhibit  under 
their  administration. 

The  political  jealousies  which  had  for  more  than 


16  COJ^QUEST   OF   GRANADA. 

three  centuries  counterbalanced  the  mutual  zeal  of 
the  Christian  princes  for  religion  and  conquest,  had 
prevented  any  effective  measures  being  taken  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  only  remaining  Moorish  power 
in  the  Peninsula.  The  civil  wars  which  rent  Granada 
at  the  time  of  Ferdinand's  accession,  favoured,  if 
they  did  not  suggest,  his  project  for  its  invasion. 
But  even  in  the  last  stage  of  the  Moslem  dominion, 
and  enfeebled  by  the  strife  of  its  contending  parties, 
one  of  which  took  part  with  the  invaders,  Granada, 
animated  by  the  heroic  though  expiring  spirit  of 
its  founders,  held  out  for  more  than  ten  years  against 
the  overwhelming  hosts  of  the  foe.  Inch  by  inch 
was  its  territory  won ;  town  slowly  followed  town, 
till  at  last  the  city  itself  was  taken  in  1492;  and 
with  it  fell  for  ever  the  Moorish  power  in  Spain. 
The  conquest  of  Granada  raised  the  name  of  Ferdi- 
nand to  high  estimation  throughout  Europe. 

The  next  important  event  in  this  reign,  was  the 
discovery  of  America  by  Columbus,  who  had  in  vain 
sought  for  aid  in  his  enterprise  from  his  native 
city  Genoa,  and  afterwards  from  Don  John  of 
Portugal. 

In  addition  to  the  kingdom  of  Granada,  the 
dominions  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  were  increased 
by  the  counties  of  Kousillon  and  Cerdagne,  ceded 
to  them  by  Charles  VIII.   of  France,  who  wished 


CHARLES   V.  17' 

thereby  to  conciliate  Ferdinand,  and  smootli  every 
impediment  to  the  expedition  which  he  meditated 
against  Italy.  In  this,  however,  he  failed ;  for 
Ferdinand,  jealously  alive  to  the  ambition  of  the 
French  king,  sent  an  army  to  the  aid  of  his  relative 
and  namesake,  Ferdinand  I.,  who  at  that  time 
occupied  the  throne  of  Naples.  Seeing,  however, 
that  Louis  XII.,  who  succeeded  Charles,  was  bent 
on  the  conquest  of  Naples,  Ferdinand,  more  ambi- 
tious than  just,  proposed,  on  a  paltry  plea,  to  divide 
that  kingdom  with  the  French  monarch.  This  was 
done ;  in  1501  Naples  was  conquered,  and  divided 
between  the  allies.  Five  years  after,  the  Spanish 
general  Gonsalvo  de  Cordova,  surnamed  El  Gran 
Capitan,  drove  the  French  from  Italy,  and  presented 
the  Neapolitan  crown  to  his  wily  master.  At  this 
time  Isabella  died,  and  was  succeeded  in  the  joint 
sovereignty  with  Ferdinand  by  their  daughter  Joanna, 
wife  of  Philip,  Archduke  of  Austria ;  and,  on  the 
death  of  the  latter,  by  her  son  Charles  V.,  afterwards 
Emperor  of  Germany.  Ferdinand  survived  his  queen 
only  ten  years,  dying  in  1516,  having  appointed 
Cardinal  Ximenez  regent  till  the  arrival  of  Charles 
in  Spain. 

Having   now    reached   the    reign   in    which   the 
history  of  Protestantism  in  the  Peninsula  properly 
begins,  we  shall  conclude  this  introductory  outline 
C 


Id  FORMS   OF   GOVERNMENT 

of  Spanish  history  by  a  very  brief  sketch  of  the  civil 
polity  of  the  country  at  this  time. 

The  two  kingdoms  of  Aragon  and  Castile,  though 
united,  were  still,  in  a  sense,  distinct.  The  union 
which  had  occasionally  existed,  and  which  the  mar- 
riage of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  had  consolidated, 
did  not  so  completely  blend  the  two  governments 
as  to  alter,  in  any  material  degree,  the  positive  and 
distinctive  prerogatives  of  their  respective  sovereigns. 
Against  this  the  Castilians  had  jealously  guarded. 
Ferdinand  interfered  but  little  in  the  internal  affairs 
of  Castile,  and  Isabella  as  little  in  those  of  Aragon. 
The  two  kingdoms  stood  to  each  other  rather  in  the 
relation  of  allies,  than  of  separate  portions  of  the 
same  monarchy.  This  distinction,  however,  ceased 
with  the  accession  of  Charles,  the  common  heir  of 
both  sovereigns;  and  the  connection  then  formed 
between  them  was  closely  analogous  to  that  which 
now  subsists  politically  between  England  and  Scot- 
land. Indeed,  the  Spanish  constitution  at  that  time, 
and  subsequently,  very  much  resembled  our  own 
at  the  present  day.  The  government  consisted  of 
the  King  and  the  Cortes,  the  former  of  whom  exer- 
cised the  executive,  and  the  latter  the  legislative 
functions.  For  several  ages  the  crown  had  been 
elective,  within  the  limits  of  one  royal  family ;  but 
as   the   choice,  of  course,   generally  fell   upon  the 


IN   ARAGON   AND    CASTILE.  19 

nearest  heir,  this  custom  became  in  time  virtually 
obsolete,  and  the  crown  descended,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  in  regular  order  after  the  eleventh 
century,  by  which  time  a  right  of  hereditary  suc- 
cession had  been  clearly  established.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, the  monarchy  was  limited  ;  the  prerogatives  of 
the  crown  being  explicitly  determined  by  law ;  these, 
however,  would  uselessly  occupy  space  in  their 
enumeration.  The  primary  and  most  essential 
characteristic  of  such  a  monarchy,  namely,  that 
money  cannot  be  levied  from  the  people  without 
the  consent  of  their  deputies,  was  thoroughly  es- 
tablished. 

The  Cortes,  or  parliament,  was  composed  of  mem- 
bers returned  by  certain  towns  which  had  the  right 
of  representation.  In  this  Aragon  differed  slightly 
from  Castile,  inasmuch  as  the  nobility  had  a  larger 
share  in  the  legislation  there  than  in  the  latter. 
Its  civil  polity  still  more  closely  resembled  our  own, 
and  its  analogous  balance  of  power  was  attended 
by  similarly  beneficial  results.  Indeed,  there  was 
at  that  time  no  form  of  government,  in  any  of  the 
Continental  monarchies,  more  interesting  than  that 
of  Aragon,  as  a  happy  temperament  of  law  and 
justice  with  the  authority  of  the  crown.  In  this 
respect  it  had  the  advantage  of  Castile  in  some 
degree;   but  in  the  main  their  constitutions  were 


2U  THE   ECCLESIASTICAL    ELEMENT. 

similar.  Tn  both,  during  the  interval  of  the  Cortes, 
the  sovereigns  acted  by  the  advice  of  a  smaller 
council,  answering  to  the  king's  privy  council  in 
England.  Civil  and  criminal  justice  was  administered 
by  judges  appointed  in  some  instances  by  the  sove- 
reign, and  in  others  by  the  towns  in  which  they 
presided. 

There  is  much  doubt  as  to  the  exact  extent  to 
which  the  ecclesiastical  element  entered  into  the 
constitution  of  the  Cortes.  Down  to  the  middle 
of  the  13th  century,  the  prelates  seem  to  have 
exercised  a  considerable  influence  in  its  proceedings ; 
but  at  the  end  of  the  15th  century  their  rights,  in 
this  respect,  would  appear  to  have  been  no  longer 
recognized.  Indeed,  so  early  as  the  year  1295,  we 
find  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo  publicly  protesting 
against  the  acts  of  the  Cortes,  because  the  bishops 
were  not  regularly  admitted  to  a  share  in  its  delibera- 
tions. In  the  following  chapters,  however,  we  shall 
see  how  largely  and  banefully  the  indirect  influence 
which  they  exercised  told  upon  the  general  govern- 
ment of  the  country,  as  the  power  of  its  priesthood 
always  does  wherever  Popery  is  in  the  ascendant. 

This  necessarily  rapid  sketch  of  the  history  and 
polity  of  Spain,  will  enable  the  general  reader  to 
form  some  idea  of  a  country  which  was  destined 
to   become   the   stage   on  which   scenes   of  bloody 


ITS    EVIL   EFFECTS.  21 

persecution  for  the  truth's  sake  were  to  be  enacted 
in  the  name  of  Him  "  who  came  not  to  destroy,  but 
to  save,"  by  the  agents  of  that  Abomination  which 
degrades  the  intellect  and  ruins  the  souls  of  its 
deluded  adherents — scenes  which  have  rarely  been 
equalled,  and  never  surpassed,  in  barbarous  cruelty, 
even  in  the  annals  of  that  blood-stained  system. 


22  THE  SPANISH    CHUBCH. 


i^lmUx  Sm\\)i. 


OUTLINE  OF  SPANISH   ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  PREVIOUS  TO 
THE   REFORMATION. 

Before  entering  upon  a  detailed  account  of  the 
introduction  of  the  reformed  doctrines  into  the  Penin- 
sula, it  will  be  proper,  for  the  sake  of  having  more 
accurate  and  extensive  views  of  the  state  of  religion 
in  that  country,  to  glance  back  to  the  history  of  the 
Spanish  Church  before  the  time  of  the  Reformation. 
There  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
the  time  at  which  Christianity  was  first  introduced 
into  the  Peninsula.  The  Spanish  ecclesiastical  his- 
torians, almost  without  a  dissentient  voice,  have 
maintained  that  the  gospel  was  first  preached  to  their 
ancestors  by  the  apostle  James  ;  that  he  traversed 
the  Peninsula,  from  Lusitania  and  Gallicia  to  the 


THE   APOSTLES   IN   SPAIN.  Z6 

heart  of  Aragon ;  that  while  at  Saragoza,  he  was 
honoured  by  a  visit  from  the  Virgin  j  and  that  by  her 
express  command  he  erected  a  church  on  the  spot  in 
her  honour  ;  that  after  his  martyrdom  at  Jerusalem, 
his  body  was  brought  from  Syria  to  Iria  Flavia 
(the  modern  El  Padeon),  in  Gallicia,  and  was  thence 
transferred  to  Compostella  to  be  worshipped  by  the 
faithful  throughout  all  time.  All  this,  however,  has 
no  firmer  foundation  than  tradition.  But  if  we  are 
to  credit  Athanasius,  Jerome,  and  others  of  the  early 
Fathers,  there  is  good  reason  for  believing  that  Paul 
visited  Spain  and  preached  the  gospel  to  its  idolatrous 
inhabitants.  But  whether  or  not  the  Apostles  pro- 
pagated the  gospel  in  the  Peninsula,  certain  it  is, 
that  Spain  can  produce  her  martyrs  as  early  as  the 
second  century,  and  had  churches  established  through- 
out various  parts  of  the  country  during  the  third. 
Of  the  early  state  of  these  churches  but  little  is 
known.  Coming  down,  however,  to  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century,  we  reach  the  period  of  authentic 
history,  at  which  we  have  firm  ground  to  stand 
upon  in  our  efforts  to  know  something  of  Spanish 
Christianity. 

The  amount  of  our  knowledge  of  its  early  state, 
may  be  conveniently  arranged  under  three  heads  : — 
The  Doctrine  of  the  ancient  Spanish  Church — its 
Government — and  its  Worship. 


24  DOCTRINES. 

T.  Shortly  after  .the  planting  of  the  first  churches 
in  the  Peninsula,  doctrinal  sentiments  which  have  been 
commonly  regarded  by  all  Christians  as  heretical, 
sprang  up  and  widely  prevailed  in  Spain.  The 
earliest  and  most  important  of  these,  were  those 
which  were  disseminated  in  the  fourth  century,  by 
Priscillian,  a  native  of  Gallicia,  and  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Avila.  Early  in  the  century  the  doctrines 
of  the  ancient  Gnostics  had  been  introduced  into 
Spain  from  Egypt,  by  one  Mark,  a  native  of  Mem- 
phis. Out  of  these  and  the  tenets  of  the  Manichseans, 
Priscillian  constructed  a  new  system,  which  even  in 
his  own  lifetime  had  many  adherents,  and  subse- 
quently became  the  prevailing  creed  of  the  country 
for  nearly  the  whole  of  the  two  centuries  succeeding 
his  death.  Being  accused  by  some  bishops  before 
the  Emperor  Gratian,  Priscillian  and  his  followers 
were  banished  from  Spain,  but  he  soon  after  returned. 
He  was  again  accused  in  384,  and  being  condemned 
along  with  several  of  his  associates,  was  executed  at 
Treves,  in  Germany,  in  the  year  385.  This  was  the 
first  instance  of  death  for  heresy.  The  chief  char- 
acteristic of  this  system  was  Arianism. 

Having  returned  to  the  common  faith  towards  the 
close  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Spanish  churches  lapsed 
after  a  time  into  the  adoption  of  Nestorianism,  and 
some  other  erroneous  doctrinal  theories  of  less  note. 


1 


ADOPTTONISM. — IMAGE  WORSHIP.  25 

These  again  were  exchanged  in  the  eighth  century 
for  the  tenets  of  the  adoptionists,  who  held  that 
Christ,  though  "  as  God,  was  by  nature  and  truly  the 
Son  of  God,  yet,  as  man,  was  the  Son  of  God  only  in 
name  and  by  adoption."  This  doctrine  originated 
with  Felix,  Bishop  of  Urgel  in  Spain,  from  whom  it 
was  imbibed  and  widely  disseminated  by  Elipandus, 
Archbishop  of  Toledo.  It  maintained  itself  for  a 
considerable  time,  in  spite  of  the  decision  of  several 
councils,  supported  by  the  learning  of  Alcuin,  and  the 
authority  of  his  pupil  the  emperor  Charlemagne,  by 
whom  Felix  was  banished  to  Lyons,  where  he  died, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century. 

But  amidst  these  errors  which  so  widely  prevailed, 
there  were  not  wanting  Spaniards  who  held  some  of 
the  leading  opinions  afterwards  advocated  by  the 
Protestant  Keformers.  The  worship  of  images 
(which  had  begun  as  early  as  the  fourth  century), 
and  the  veneration  paid  to  the  relics  and  sepulchres 
of  the  saints,  were  loudly  inveighed  against  by 
Claude,  Bishop  of  Turin,  but  a  Spaniard,  who 
flourished  in  this  century.  Contemporary  with 
Claude,  was  his  countryman,  Galindo  Prudentio, 
Bishop  of  Troyes  in  France.  This  prelate,  who  died 
in  861,  was  a  man  of  great  piety  and  extensive 
learning.  The  sentiments  which  he  advocated  in 
the   predestinarian    controversy,   in    opposition    to 


26  GOVERNMENT. 

Hincmar,  Archbishop  of  Eheims,  and  the  noted 
school-man,  Joannes  Scotus,  bear  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  those  which  the  Komish  Church  has  since 
anathematized  in  the  writings  of  the  German 
Beformers. 

Notwithstanding  the  occasional  prevalence  of  doc- 
trinal errors  such  as  those  already  mentioned,  Spain 
is  generally  spoken  of  as,  and  may  properly  be  con- 
sidered, a  catholic  country,  from  the  time  that  she 
renounced  the  Priscillianist  or  Arian  heresy,  under 
Keccared,  towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  century. 

II.  In  the  fourth  century  the  Spanish  Church 
was  governed  by  no  other  officers  than  bishops, 
presbyters,  and  deacons.  She  had  neither  metro- 
politans nor  archbishops,  subdeacons  nor  lectors.  A 
gradual  relaxation  of  her  discipline  took  place,  how- 
ever, when  the  government,  of  the  church  came  to 
be  formed  upon  the  model  of  the  empire,  after 
Constantine  the  Great  embraced  Christianity.  This 
change,  however,  was  more  slowly  introduced  into 
Spain  than  into  some  other  countries,  for  its  bishops 
imitated  the  example  of  the  neighbouring  Church  of 
Africa,  with  which  the  Spanish  was  closely  allied, 
and  which  jealously  guarded  the  balance  of  episcopal 
power  against  the  encroachments  of  the  metropoli- 
tans. The  supremacy  of  the  Bishops  of  Rome  was 
not  acknowledged,  nor  can  it  be  proved  that  they 


THE    BISHOPS    OF   ROME.  27 

exercised  any  authority  in  the  internal  government 
of  the  Spanish  church,  earlier  than  the  ninth  century. 
The  title  of  Pope,  which  they  subsequently  arrogated, 
was  at  first  given  to  all  who  were  invested  with  the 
episcopal  office ;  and  even  when  it  came  to  be  con- 
ferred less  promiscuously,  it  was  still  given  to  a  num- 
ber in  common.'^  The  chief  causes  to  which  we  must 
trace  the  subsequent  pre-eminence  of  the  Roman 
bishops,  are  to  be  found  in  the  antiquity  of  their  see, 
and  the  more  substantial  reasons  which,  in  the 
estimation  of  men,  commonly  give  priority  and 
greatness.  The  amplitude  and  splendour  of  their 
church,  the  magnitude  of  their  revenues  and  posses- 
sions, the  number  of  their  clergy,  the  weight  of  their 
influence  with  the  people  at  large,  and  the  sumptuous- 
ness  and  magnificence  of  their  style  of  living — all 
these  combined  to  give  them  a  superior  importance 
to  prelates  of  less  extensive  and  wealthy  sees.  It 
was  customary,  in  matters  which  concerned  the 
cause  of  religion  in  general,  or  in  difficult  questions 
of  internal  discipline,  to  ask  advice  from  foreign 
churches.  On  such  occasions  the  bishops  of  Rome 
came  to  be  regularly  consulted,  owing  to  the  influ- 
ence which  they  gradually  acquired  from  the  causes 

*  In  the  eighth  century  the  title  of  Pope,  or  Patriarch,  was 
confined  to  the  sees  of  Rome,  Constantinople,  Alexandria, 
Antioch,  and  Jerusalem. 


28  NON-RECOGNITION 

enumerated.  But  this  was  not  to  the  exclusion  of 
other  prelates  ;  nor  did  they  arrogate  any  right  of 
supremacy  earlier  than  the  latter  part  of  the  ninth 
century.  Gregory  the  Great,  who  was  Bishop  of 
Bome  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  thus  declaimed 
against  the  assumption  of  supremacy  by  the  Bishop 
of  Constantinople  : — "  Far  from  the  hearts  of  Chris- 
tians be  this  name  of  blasphemy  [^.e.,  Universal 
Patriarch],  which  takes  away  the  honours  of  the 
whole  priesthood,  while  it  is  madly  arrogated  by 
one  !  None  of  my  predecessors  would  ever  consent 
to  use  this  profane  word,  because,  if  one  Patriarch  is 
called  universal,  the  rest  are  deprived  of  the  name  of 
Patriarchs." 

In  proof  of  the  non-recognition  of  Roman  supre- 
macy, we  may  mention,  that  a  council  held  at  Toledo 
in  the  year  655,  determined  that  appeals  in  matters  of 
discipline  or  doctrine  should  lie  from  a  bishop  to  a 
metropolitan  (or  episcopal  governor  of  a  province), 
and  from  a  metropolitan  to  the  royal  audience.  Still 
further  proof  of  their  independence  of  Rome,  is 
furnished  by  the  proceedings  and  language  of  the 
Spanish  bishops  in  683.  In  that  year,  Leo  ^11., 
Bishop  of  Rome,  sent  the  acts,  of  the  sixth  ecumen- 
ical council,  which  had  been  held  at  Constantinople 
three  years  before,  and  which  had  condemned  the 


OF   ROMISH   SUPREMACY.  29 

Monothellte  heresy,  to  Spain,  requesting  the  bishops 
to  give  them  their  sanction,  and  to  secure  their  circu- 
lation amongst  the  Spanish  churches.  The  Arch- 
bishop of  Toledo  was  commissioned  by  his .  brother 
prelates  to  transmit  a  rescript  to  Rome,  intimating 
their  general  approbation  of  the  decision  submitted 
to  them,  and  stating  the  sentiments  of  the  Spanish 
church  on  the  heresy  in  question.  These-  acts  were 
formally  considered  at  a  council  held  in  Toledo  the 
following  year,  in  such  a  manner  as  plainly  evinced 
the  determination  of  the  bishops  to  maintain  the 
independence  of  their  church.  Finding  these  acts  of 
the  council  of  Constantinople  to  be  consonant  with 
the  decisions  of  the  four  preceding  canonical  councils, 
particularly  that  of  Chalcedon,  held  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixth  century,  they  said  : — "  Wherefore  we  agree 
that  the  acts  of  the  said  council  be  reverenced  and 
received  by  us,  inasmuch  as  they  do  not  differ  from 
the  foresaid  councils,  or  rather,  as  thej  appear  to 
coincide  with  them.  We  allot  to  them,  therefore, 
that  place  in  point  of  order  to  which  their  merit 
entitles  them.  Let  them  come  after  the  council  of 
Chalcedon,  by  whose  light  they  shine."  They  next 
considered  the  rescript  which  the  Archbishop  had 
sent  by  their  authority  to  Rome  the  year  previously, 
and  declared  it  to  be,  "a copious  and  lucid  exposi- 


30  THE  MONOTHELITE   HERESY. 

tion  of  the  truth  concerning  the  double  will  and 
operation  of  Christ,"'^  adding,  "wherefore,  for  the 
sake  of  general  instruction,  and  the  benefit  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline,  we  confirm  and  sanction  it, 
as  entitled  to  equal  honour  and  reverence,  and  to 
have  the  same  permanent  authority,  as  the  decretal 
epistles."  When  this  rescript  reached  Eome,  where 
Benedict  II.  had  in  the  mean  time  succeeded  Leo 
in  the  popedom,  it  gave  much  dissatisfaction  to  that 
prelate.  Having  drawn  up  certain  objections  to  it, 
he  transmitted  them  to  Spain,  where  they  were  fully 
considered  in  a  council  held  at  Toledo  in  688,  a 
brief  answer  having  been,  as  before,  given  by  the 
Archbishop  for  the  rest.  In  a  lengthened  vindica- 
tion of  the  opinions  at  which  offence  had  been 
taken,t  they  replied  : — "  As  we  will  not  be  ashamed 
to  defend  the  truth,  so  there  are,  perhaps,  some 
persons  who  will  be  ashamed  at  being  found  ignorant 
of  the  truth.  For  who  knows  not  that  in  every 
man  there  are  two  substances,  namely,  soul  and 
body?"  After  supporting  their  opinion  by  quota- 
tions from  the  Fathers,  they  added  :  "  But  if  any  one 
shall  be  so  shameless  as  not  to  acquiesce  in  these 

*  Which  the  Monothelites  denied. 

+  The  most  objectionable  were  those  in  which  they  had 
asserted  that  there  are  three  substances  in  Christ ;  viz.,  his 
divine  nature,  human  soul,  and  body. 


WORSHIP.  31 

sentiments,  and  acting  the  part  of  a  haughty  in- 
quirer, shall  ask  whence  we  drew  such  things,  at 
least  he  will  yield  to  the  words  of  the  gospel,  in 
which  Christ  declares  that  he  possesses  three  sub- 
stances." They  then  quoted  and  commented  on 
such  passages  of  the  New  Testament  as  they  con- 
sidered confirmatory  of  their  opinions,  and  thus 
concluded  :  "  If,  after  this  statement,  and  the  senti- 
ments of  the  Fathers  from  which  it  has  been  taken, 
any  person  shall  dissent  from  us  in  any  thing,  we 
will  have  no  farther  dispute  with  him,  but  keeping 
steadily  in  the  plain  path,  and  treading  in  the 
footsteps  of  our  predecessors,  we  are  persuaded  that 
our  answer  will  commend  itself  to  the  approbation 
of  all  lovers  of  truth  who  are  capable  of  forming 
a  divine  judgment,  though  we  may  be  charged  with 
obstinacy  by  the  ignorant  and  envious." 

Thus  plainly  did  a  council  of  the  Spanish  Church 
address  the  Bishop  of  Rome  towards  the  close  of  the 
seventh  century. 

III.  The  forms  of  its  worship  will  still  further 
illustrate  the  independence  of  the  ancient  Spanish 
church. 

Throughout  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries, 
the  mode  of  worship  was  substantially  the  same 
in  the  whole  Christian  church.  There  were,  how- 
ever, different  liturgies,  or  forms,  in  use  amongst  the 


32  VARIOUS   LITURGIES. 

individual  churches  composing  it.  Each  bishop 
according  to  his  own  views,  and  as  the  circumstances 
of  times,  places,  and  persons  suggested,  prescribed  to 
his  own  flock  such  a  form  of  public  worship  as  he 
judged  best.  The  Ambrosian  liturgy,  used  by  the 
church  of  Milan,  and  named  from  St.  Ambrose, 
Bishop  of  Milan,  difiered  considerably  from  the 
Roman,  which  was  drawn  up  by  Gregory  the  Great. 
In  France  it  continued  to  be  used,  till  superseded  by 
the  Roman  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  In  England 
the  ancient  Britons  had  one  liturgy,  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  subsequently  another,  which  they  received 
from  Augustine  their  apostle,  and  which  differed 
materially  from  that  of  Gregory.  Indeed,  not  only 
were  different  forms  of  celebrating  divine  worship 
employed  by  different  nations,  but  sometimes  even 
in  different  parts  of  the  same  nation.  That  this 
was  the  case  in  Spain  down  to  the  year  633,  is 
proved  by  the  fact,  that  the  fourth  council  of 
Toledo,  held  in  that  year,  decreed  that  one  uniform 
order  should  be  observed  in  all  the  churches  of  the 
Peninsula.  In  consequence  of  this  decree,  the  Gothic 
or  Mozarabic  liturgy  was  uniformly  adopted.  This 
liturgy  is  sometimes  called  the  Isidorian  or  Ildefon- 
sian,  from  its  being  revised  by  Isidore  and  Ildefonso, 
Archbishops  of  Seville  and  Toledo,  who  succeeded  to 
those  sees  respectively  in  the  years  595  and  657. 


ILDEFONSIAN   AND    GKEGORIAN.  33 

The  difference  between  this  ritual  and  the  Eoman 
is  placed  beyond  doubt  by  their  disagreement  on  the 
adoptionarian  doctrines.  During  the  controversy 
which  raged  in  the  eighth  century  on  these  tenets, 
their  Spanish  advocates  appealed  to  their  national 
ritual  in  support  of  the  opinions  which  they  defended. 
The  opposing  council  of  Frankfort  replied :  "  It  is 
better  to  believe  the  testimony  of  God  the  Father 
concerning  his  own  Son,  than  that  of  your  Ildefonso, 
who  composed  for  you  such  prayers,  in  the  solemn 
masses,  as  the  universal  and  holy  church  of  God 
knows  not,  and  in  which  we  do  not  think  you  will 
be  heard.  And  if  your  Ildefonso  in  his  prayers 
called  Christ  the  adopted  son  of  God,  our  Gregory, 
pontiff  of  the  Koman  see,  and  a  doctor  beloved  by 
the  whole  world,  does  not  hesitate  in  his  prayers  to 
call  him  always  the  only-begotten." 

We  might  multiply  instances  in  which  the  worship 
of  the  ancient  Spanish  church  differed  in  its  forms 
from  those  of  the  Koman ;  but  these  will  be  sufficient 
to  prove  that  the  dissimilarity  was  considerable. 
We  shall  now  proceed  to  state  how  she  was  led  to 
adopt  the  usages  and  recognize  the  supremacy  of  the 
church  of  Rome. 

As  we  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Chris- 
tian Spain  was  divided,  in  the  eleventh  century,  into 
the  three  kingdoms  of  Castile,  Aragon,  and  Navarre, 


34  INTRODUCTION   OP 

the  last  of  which  was  incorporated  with  the  first  two 
by  Ferdinand  in  1512.  Alonso  I.  of  Castile,  having 
married  Constance,  a  daughter  of  the  royal  house  of 
France,  towards  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century, 
was  instigated  by  that  princess  to  introduce  into  his 
dominions  the  Roman  liturgy,  to  which  she  had  been 
accustomed.  This  innovation  was  eagerly  supported 
by  the  papal  legate,  and  as  warmly  opposed  by  the 
Castilian  clergy,  nobility^  and  people  at  large.  After 
much  controversy,  a  compromise  was  made,  by  which 
it  was  arranged  that  the  old  Gothic  liturgy  should 
be  used  in  the  six  churches  of  Toledo,  which  the 
Christians  had  enjoyed  under  the  Moors,  whilst  the 
Roman  should  be  adopted  in  all  the  other  churches 
of  the  kingdom.  The  people  clung  for  a  while  to 
their  old  forms,  but,  discountenanced  by  the  court 
and  the  superior  ecclesiastics,  they  soon  fell  into 
disrepute,  and  the  Roman  were  universally  em- 
ployed. 

In  Aragon  the  introduction  of  the  Roman  liturgy 
had  been  attempted  somewhat  earlier  than  in  Castile, 
though  it  was  established  in  both  kingdoms  about 
the  same  time.  The  first  mass,  according  to  the 
Roman  form,  was  celebrated  in  Aragon  in  the 
monastery  of  St.  Juan  de  la  Pena,  on  the  21st  of 
March,  1071  j  and  in  Castile,  in  the  Grand  Mosque 
of  Toledo,  on  the  25th  of  October,  1086. 


KOMISH   AUTHORITY.  35 

As  was  expected  by  the  Bishop  of  Eome,  the 
establishment  of  the  Komaii  liturgy  was  soon  followed 
by  the  full  recognition  of  his  authority  in  Spain. 
Nor  was  this  authority  merely  ecclesiastical ;  it 
gradually  led  to  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Pope's 
civil  ownership  of  the  kingdom.  It  is  sufficient 
to  refer  in  support  of  this  statement  to  the  subjuga- 
tion of  the  crown  and  kingdom  of  Aragon,  in  the 
reign  of  Don  Ramiro  I.,  who,  for  several  years  before 
his  death,  in  1063,  held  his  kingdom  as  a  fief  of  the 
Roman  see.  This  vassalao;e  was  acknowledged  again 
in  1204,  by  Don  Pedro  II.,  who,  eight  years  after  he 
had  ascended  the  throne,  went  to  Rome  and  did 
homage  to  Innocent  III.  as  his  sovereign  lord. 
Against  this  submission  the  nobles  and  people  loudly 
protested,  but  in  vain ;  the  papal  supremacy  being 
once  established  could  not  be  got  rid  of.  The  yoke 
then  imposed,  though  vainly  attempted  to  be  thrown 
off  by  some  subsequent  monarchs,  presses  like  a 
deadly  incubus  on  the  country  still.  The  religious 
history  of  Spain  during  the  period  we  are  now 
reviewing,  was  intimately  connected  with  that  of 
Languedoc  and  Provence.  These  provinces  were  at 
that  time  more  properly  Aragonese  than  French. 
The  viscounts  of  Narbonne,  Beziers,  and  Carcassone, 
did  homage  to  the  king  of  Aragon  as  Count  of 
Provence   and  Avignon,  and  other    cities  acknow- 


36  THE   VAUDOIS. 

ledged  him  as  their  baronial  superior.  This  close 
connection  between  these  provinces  and  Spain,  led 
many  of  the  Vaudois  to  cross  the  Pyrenees  and  settle 
in  the  Peninsula,  soon  after  their  rise  in  the  south  of 
France.  The  history  of  the  persecutions  of  this 
interesting  people  is  too  well  known  to  need  repeti- 
tion here,  even  if  the  plan  of  our  sketch  required  it. 
But  as  their  history  was  intimately  connected  for 
a  time  with  that  of  evangelical  religion  in  Spain, 
it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  occupy  a  few  lines 
in  very  briefly  noticing  it.  Most  of  our  readers  are, 
perhaps,  acquainted  with  the  commonly  received 
opinion  that  this  sect  sprung  up  early  in  the  twelfth 
century,  and  rapidly  multiplied  in  France,  whence  it 
spread  into  Lombardy  and  other  parts  of  the  Italian 
peninsula.*     If  space  permitted,  we  might  give  an 

*  Such,  as  we  have  said,  is  the  date  commonly  assigned 
to  the  rise  of  the  Vaudois ;  but  there  is  abundant  evidence 
to  warrant  our  conviction  that  they  existed  at  a  period  much 
earlier  than  the  12th  century.  There  has  long  been,  and 
still  is,  much  difference  of  opinion,  not  only  as  to  the  time 
at  which  the  sect  originated,  but  likewise  as  to  the  exact 
parties  to  whom  the  term  Vaudois  properly  belongs.  Their 
orthodoxy  has  been  the  subject  of  similar  dispute.  But 
though  the  difficulty  of  satisfactorily  determining  these 
three  questions  has  been  very  materially  increased  by  re- 
garding the  different  names  by  which  they  w^ere  known  in 
different  places,  as  indicating  entirely  distinct  sects,  there  is 
good  reason  to  believe  that  the  term  Vaudois  (or  Waldenses) 


NUMEROUS   DESIGNATIONS.  37 

interestiDg  enumeration  of  the  probable  causes  to 
which  their  rapid  spread  may  be  attributed.  The 
people  amongst  whom  they  [are  said  to  have]  origi- 
nated, had  reached  a  very  high  state  of  civilization 
and  refinement.  Their  rich  and  musical  language 
had  been  finely  cultivated  both  in  prose  and  verse. 
The  Troubadours  poured  forth  in  it  their  lays  of 
love,  and  sentiments  of  a  refined  gallantry,  which 
perished  with  the  warrior-poets  who  gave  them  shape 

included,  as  a  general  appellation,  all  the  Christian  churches 
of  Europe  who  refused  to  acknowledge  the  Supremacy  of 
Rome.  Hallam,  in  his  History  of  the  Middle  Ages,  asserts, 
and  supports  his  position  by  a  lengthened  but  to  some 
extent  one-sided  argument,  that  the  Waldenses  were  essen- 
tially distinct,  both  in  doctrine  and  locality,  from  the  Albi- 
genses.  The  latter  he  charges  with  Manichseism,  whilst  the 
former,  he  admits,  were  free  from  it.  But  Dr.  McCrie,  in 
his  lecture  on  the  History  of  the  Waldensian  Church  (see 
Lectures  on  the  Foi^eign  Churches,  by  various  divines),  main- 
tains their  identity.  He  says  : — "  On  the  Italian  side  of  the 
Alps,  we  meet  with  some  of  them  called  Berengerians,  from 
Berenger  of  Louis,  Cathari,  Beghards,  Paulicians,  Paterins, 
Subalpines,  and  Vaudois.  On  the  French  side,  we  have 
them  denominated  Albigenses,  from  Albi,  a  town  in  the 
south  of  France,  where  they  abounded  for  some  time  ; 
Waldenses,  from  Peter  Waldo  of  Lyons,"  &c.  The  same 
opinion  is  advocated  by  Perrin,  in  his  Histoire  de  Vaudois, 
and  more  strongly  still  by  Faber,  whpse  Vallenses  and 
Waldenses  is  a  complete  refutation  of  all  the  charges  which 
have  been  brought,  even  by  some  Protestant  divines,  against 
the  antiquity  and  orthodoxy  of  these  churches. 


38  PERSECUTION   OF   THE 

in  song.  Mainly  by  them  was  instilled  into  the 
minds  of  the  people  that  love  for  polite  learning 
which  so  honourably  distinguished  the  Provence 
from  the  other  provinces  of  France.  Such  was  not 
the  most  favourable  soil  for  the  growth  of  a  blind 
faith  in  the  arbitrary  dogmas  of  a  bigoted  and  igno- 
rant priesthood.  The  free  and  enlightened  doctrines 
of  the  new  sect  were  more  in  harmony  with  the 
genius  and  intellectual  condition  of  such  a  people ; 
and  hence  the  readiness  with  which  they  were 
received,  and  the  stedfastness  with  which  they  were 
adhered  to,  when  once  embraced.  But,  however 
interesting  the  theme,  we  must  not  indulge  in  the 
digression. 

Those  of  the  Vaudois  who  had  passed  over  into 
Spain,  as  we  have  remarked,  were  for  a  time  per- 
mitted to  remain  undisturbed.  But  in  1194,  Pope 
Celestin  III.  prevailed  upon  Alfonso  II.  of  Aragon, 
to  order  their  expulsion  from  his  territories.  This 
began  their  troubles.  A  similar  edict,  at  the  instance 
of  the  Pope,  was  unwillingly  issued  by  Alfonso's 
successor,  Peter  11. ,  three  years  afterwards^  but  it 
was  not  enforced.  So  far,  indeed,  was  Peter  from 
being  unfavourable  to  them,  that  he  joined  his 
brother-in-law.  Count  Raymond  of  Toulouse,  in 
opposing  the  crusade  which  was  raging  against  them 
in  the  territories  of  the  latter,  and  fell  fighting  in 


VAUDOIS   IN   SPAIN.  39 

their  defence,  at  the  battle  of  Muret,  in  the  year 
1213.^  The  sympathy  thus  practically  expressed, 
induced  great  numbers  of  the  persecuted  Christians 
to  take  refuge  in  the  territories  of  the  Spanish  king. 
In  a  few  years  their  numbers  were  increased  to  such 
an  extent  by  fresh  immigrants,  that  they  had  churches 
in  most  parts  of  Aragon,  Catalonia,  Leon,  and 
Castile.  As  might  be  expected,  the  settlement  and 
spread  of  such  heretics  on  the  sacred  soil  of  Spain 
were  not  unopposed  by  the  Inquisition.  In  the  year 
1237,  forty-five  were  condemned  within  the  diocese  of 
Urgel  alone,*  of  whom  fifteen  perished  in  its  fires, 
whilst  the  rest  were  doomed  to  perpetual  imprison- 
ment or  other  painful  penance.  Some  of  them 
formed  themselves  into  a  religious  brotherhood,  to 
escape  the  persecution  to  which  they  were  exposed, 
and  having  modified  several  of  their  doctrinal  senti- 
ments, even  received  the  sanction  of  Pope  Innocent 
III.,  in  1207.  But  the  respite  from  persecution 
which  this  compromise  secured  them,  was  only 
temporary.  They  were  still  looked  upon  by  the 
bishops  with  a  jealous  eye,  and  considered  to  be 
heretics  at  heart,  though  outwardly  professing  con- 
siderable conformity  to  the  papal  church.  The 
protection  afforded  by  his  Holiness  was  neither  very 
practical  nor  sincere;   and,  as  might  be  expected, 

*  Mc.Crie's  Reformation  in  Spain,  p.  34. 


40  MONKISH   ACTIVITY,    SUCCESS, 

a  knowledge  of  this  secured  for  his  letters  no  better 

obedience  than  he  wished  them  to  meet  with.     The 

* 

new  order  was  speedily  suppressed,  and  in  a  short 
time  not  one  of  its  numerous  convents  was  to  be 
found  on  either  side  of  the  Pyrenees. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  fires  of  the  Inquisition  were 
fed  by  large  numbers  of  the  original  Vaudois,  and 
many  of  the  native  Spanish  whom  they  had  won 
over  to  their  doctrines.  But  its  most  rigorous 
persecution  could  not  drive  them  out  of  the  country, 
or  win  them  back  to  the  orthodox  faith.  For  two 
centuries  they  continued  to  increase,  and  successfully 
braved  the  storm  everywhere  raised  against  them  by 
the  agents  of  the  Holy  Office.  But  they  were  at 
last  forced  to  seek  refuge  in  the  mountains  of 
Biscay,  and  the  higher  districts  of  Old  Castile, 
whence  they  were  finally  driven  down  by  the  troops 
of  John  II.,  and  perished  in  the  flames  of  the  In- 
quisition at  Valladolid  and  St.  Domingo  de  la 
Calzado.  Thus  were  the  Vaudois  exterminated  in 
Spain.  A  few  only  escaped,  who  in  after  years 
supplied  a  straggling  victim  for  the  stake. 

Whilst  the  Vaudois  were  being  thus  extirpated 
in  the  Peninsula,  the  agents  of  Rome  were  establish- 
ing her  power  in  it  with  even  more  than  their  usual 
zeal.  Foremost  in  activity  and  success  were  the 
Dominican  and  Franciscan  monks.     By  the  apparent 


WEALTH,    AND    LICENTIOUSNESS.  41 

self-denial  and  austerity  of  their  lives,  these  mendi- 
cant friars  had  gained  for  themselves  a  character 
of  peculiar  sanctity,  and  the  corresponding  influence 
which  such  a  reputation  secured.  Within  a  few 
years  from  the  time  of  their  institution,  their  con- 
vents were  established  over  nearly  the  whole  of 
Spain.  But  this  increase  of  numbers  and  power 
brought  with  it  many  and  glaring  abuses.  Falling 
off  from  the  rigorous  laws  of  their  founders,  and  the 
habits  by  which  their  reputation  and  influence  had 
been  gained,  vows  of  poverty  were  forgotten,  and 
wealth  and  licentiousness  went  hand  in  hand.  This 
corruption  of  the  monastic  institutions  became  so 
general  and  notorious,  that  the  kings  of  Spain 
attempted  their  reform  time  after  time,  but  in  vain. 
Their  efforts  were  always  frustrated  by  the  monks, 
and  the  evils  which  they  strove  to  correct  multiplied 
rather  than  decreased.  So  glaring  had  they  become 
towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  that 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  again  attempting  their 
correction,  were  obliged  to  employ  force,  and  even 
with  its  aid  would  have  failed  had  they  not  secured 
the  co-operation  of  Cardinal  Ximenez,  who  was  at 
that  time  Provincial  of  the  Franciscans.  This  latter 
order  resisted  reform  so  obstinately,  that  an  order 
for  their  expulsion  from  the  kingdom  was  issued, 
though  some  time  afterwards  revoked.     On  leaving 


42  POPISH    SUPERSTITION   AND   ABSURDITY. 

Toledo  in  solemn  procession,  they  carried  a  crucifix 
before  them,  and  chaunted  the  114th  Psalm,  which 
begins,  "  WJwn  Israel  went  out  of  Egypt,''  &c. 
Ximenez  succeeded  in  effecting  the  reform  of  many- 
superstitious  usages  which  had  gradually  crept  into 
the  Spanish  Church  during  the  dark  ages  which  had 
just  passed  away.  He  printed  an  edition  of  the 
Mozarabic  liturgy,  and  caused  it  to  be  used  in  several 
of  the  churches  j  but  as  he  had  incorporated  in  it  many 
of  the  most  objectionable  peculiarities  of  the  estab- 
lished Gregorian,  it  soon  fell  into  disuse,  and  the 
Roman  was  again  universally  employed.  From  or 
shortly  before  this  time,  may  be  dated  the  reign  of 
Popery  in  its  worst  and  most  degrading  form  in  Spain. 
All  the  gross  superstitions  and  doctrinal  absurdities  of 
the  system  were  practised  and  believed.  Legends 
and  lives  of  saints  supplied  the  place  of  the  forbidden 
Bible  to  the  devout,  whilst  miracles  and  other  absurd 
monstrosities  were  plentifully  retailed,  and  as  readily 
•believed  by  the  ignorant  and  credulous  vulgar. 
Nowhere  else  in  Europe  was  the  true  genius  of 
Popery  so  thoroughly  exemplified,  and  its  practical 
tendency  to  fetter  the  intellect  and  debase  the  soul 
so  clearly  demonstrated.  The  garment  of  darkness 
in  which  Rome  had  robed  the  nations,  was  wrapped 
round  Spain  in  multiplied  and  thickened  folds. 
Nature  had  lavished  its  fairest  gifts  upon  her,  but 


THEIR   DEBASING   INFLUENCE.  43 

superstition  and  ignorance  threw  their  blighting 
influence  over  the  land ;  the  elements  of  permanent 
greatness  which  she  possessed  could  not  develope 
themselves  in  such  an  atmosphere,  and  Spain,  comet- 
like,  shot  up,  by  the  inherent  force  of  her  old 
chivalry,  from  the  darkness  of  the  middle  ages  into 
a  temporary  glory  among  the  nations  of  Europe. 
But  mere  chivalry  could  not  keep  her  there ;  other 
and  more  divine  forces  were  needed ;  these  were  shut 
out  from  her,  and  she  fell  back  almost  into  her 
pristine  gloom. 


44  THE    REFORMATION 


C^apte  ®^itlr. 


OBSTACLES  TO  THE  SUCCESS  OF  THE   REFORMED   DOCTRINE 
IN   SPAIN. 

We  shall  now  briefly  notice  some  of  the  chief  hin- 
drances which  opposed  the  spread  of  the  Lutheran 
doctrines  in  the  Peninsula,  and  but  for  which  we 
should  not  presently  have  to  record  the  failure  of  a 
Reformation  which,  at  one  point  in  its  brief  but 
eventful  history,  bid  fair  to  consume  "  the  Inquisi- 
tion, the  hierarchy,  the  papacy,  and  the  despotism  by 
which  they  had  been  reared  and  were  upheld." 

Foremost  in  the  ranks  of  these  opposing  barriers 
stands  the  terrible  institution  just  mentioned — the 
Inquisition.  Had  it  not  been,  chiefly,  for  the  fearful 
efficiency  with  which  this  no  less  than  infernal 
engine  of   papal  despotism  accomplished  its  work, 


AND   THE   INQUISITION.  45 

the  thick  clouds  of  religious  gloom  which  even  yet 
envelope  Spain  would,  long  ere  now,  have  been 
swept  away,  and  the  full  light  of  Gospel  blessings 
have  risen  on  her  enthralled  and  benighted  people. 
This  dreadful  tribunal  calls  for  more  than  a  passing 
notice,  not  merely  on  account  of  its  intrinsic 
character  and  constitution,  but  more  particularly 
because  of  the  fatal  influence  which  it,  above  all 
other  causes,  has  exercised  upon  the  destinies  of 
Spain. 

There  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion,  both 
as  to  the  founder  of  the  Inquisition,  and  to  the 
exact  date  of  its  institution.  Some  go  back  so  far 
as  the  times  of  the  Emperor  Theodosius,  who  lived 
in  the  fourth  century,  and  find,  in  the  laws  which  he 
enacted  against  the  Manichseans,  the  germ  which 
subsequently  developed  itself  into  the  terrible  organ- 
ization of  the  Holy  Office.  But  though  death  was 
the  penalty  attached  to  the  heresy  just  mentioned, 
the  crime  was  still  considered  a  civil  offence,  to  be 
dealt  with  by  the  civil  magistrate,  and  not  by  any 
ecclesiastical  authority  whatever.  Hence  the  essen- 
tial difference  between  such  a  provision  against 
heresy,  and  that  which  was  made  by  the  Inquisition 
many  centuries  afterwards.  Nor  should  it  be 
forgotten,  that  the  laws  of  the  early  emperors,  which 
made  heresy  a  capital  offence,  contemplated  heretics 


46  INQUISITORIAL  FUNCTIONS 

as  political  factions,  which  rebelled  against  the  State 
and  disturbed  its  peace.  Such^  in  reality,  many 
of  them  were,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  letters  of 
Augustin.  In  no  such  light,  however,  did  the 
Inquisition  primarily  regard  apostates  from  the  faith 
of  Kome.  The  fundamental  principle  of  that  odious 
institution  was  not  thoroughly  recognized  sooner  than 
the  twelfth  century,  towards  the  end  of  which,  a 
commission  was  sent  by  Innocent  III.,  consisting 
of  two  legates  and  some  subordinate  priests  and 
officers,  to  extirpate  the  Albigensian  heresy  in  the 
South  of  France.  One  of  the  most  zealous  agents 
of  this  commission  was  Dominic  de  Guzman,  the 
founder  of  the  Dominican  order  of  monks.  This, 
however,  was  only  a  temporary  and  local  commis- 
sion, which  the  negligence  of  the  bishops  in  hunting 
out  heretics  had  called  for ;  and  it  had  no  judicial 
power  to  pronounce  a  definitive  sentence  on  the 
accused.  But  the  efficiency  with  which  it  performed 
the  duties  assigned  to  it  speedily  led  to  the  institu- 
tion of  similar  commissions  in  all  suspected  localities. 
It  was  not,  however,  till  the  year  1233,  that  the 
Inquisition  was  erected  as  a  distinct  tribunal,  armed 
with  judicial  and  executive  power.  In  that  year, 
Pope  Gregory  IX.  committed  the  task  of  discovering 
and  judging  heretics  to  the  Dominican  friars,  who 
erected  permanent  courts,  first  at  Toulouse,  and  next 


COMMITTED   TO   THE   DOMINICANS.  47 

at  Carcassone  and  other  places,  before  which  were 
arraigned  not  only  heretics  and  those  suspected  of 
heresy,  but  all  who  were  accused  of  Judaism,  magic, 
soothsaying,  and  similar  oflfences.  These  courts  were 
gradually  extended  to  every  city  in  which  there  were 
Dominican  convents. 

No  sooner  had  it  received  the  sanction  of  the 
Pope,  and  been  thus  thoroughly  organized,  than 
measures  were  taken  for  introducing  the  Inquisition 
into  Spain.  It  was  first  established  in  the  kingdom 
of  Aragou,  and  thence  extended  to  Navarre,  but  not, 
there  is  reason  to  believe,  to  Castile,  For  though  a 
papal  bull  was  issued  as  early  as  the  year  ]  236, 
authorizing  its  introduction  into  that  kingdom,  there 
is  no  evidence  that  it  ever  existed  there  under  its  old 
form.  The  law  of  Las  Patridas  (which  is  still  the 
fundamental  code  in  Spain),  promulgated  in  1258, 
favours  this  view,  by  the  lenient  treatment  which  it 
prescribes  for  heretics. 

The  method  of  proceeding  in  the  courts  of  the 
Inquisition  was  at  first  simple,  and  differed  but 
slightly  from  that  adopted  in  the  ordinary  courts. 
But  the  Dominicans  gradually  rendered  it  more 
complex.  Being  wholly  ignorant  of  judicial  pro- 
ceedings, they  regulated  their  own  after  the  model  of 
what  is  called,  in  the  Roman  Church,  the  Tribunal 
of  Penance,   whose   usages    were   entirely   different 


48  TORTURES   m   THE   INQUISITION. 

from  those  of  secular  courts.  Hence  arose  that 
nefarious  system  of  inquisitorial  jurisprudence,  whose 
principles  were  founded  in  the  most  cruel  injustice 
and  deceit.  False  witnesses,  delusory  promises  of 
pardon  to  the  accused,  if  they  confessed,  and  a 
tortuous  course  of  examination,  if  they  did  not, 
which  were  exchanged  for  bodily  tortures  of  the  most 
refined  cruelty,  were  the  means  employed  to  ensnare 
the  unhappy  objects  of  their  suspicion.* 

After   this  terrible  tribunal  had  existed  for  two 

*  The  following  description  of  the  tortures  to  which  the 
unfortunate  victims  were  usually  exposed,  may  well  account 
for  the  occasional  instances  to  be  met  with  of  their  sufferings 
leading  to  recantation : 

"  Having  fixed  the  day  when  he  is  to  undergo  the  tortures, 
he,  when  that  dismal  day  comes,  if  he  does  not  prevent  it, 
by  such  a  confession  as  is  expected  from  him,  is  led  to  the 
place  where  the  rack  is,  attended  by  an  inquisitor  and  a 
public  notary,  who  is  to  write  down  the  answers  the  prisoner 
gives  to  the  questions  which  shall  be  put  to  him  by  the 
inquisitor  while  he  is  upon  the  rack.  During  the  time  the 
executioner  is  preparing  that  engine  of  unspeakable  cruelty, 
and  is  taking  off  the  prisoner's  clothes,  to  his  shirt  and 
drawers,  the  inquisitor  is  still  exhorting  the  prisoner  to  have 
compassion  both  on  his  body  and  soul,  and,  by  making  a  true 
and  full  confession  of  all  his  heresies,  to  prevent  his  being 
tortured.  But  if  the  prisoner  saith  that  he  will  suffer  any- 
thing, rather  than  accuse  himself  or  others  falsely,  the 
inquisitor  commands  the  executioner  to  do  his  duty,  and  to 
begin  the  torture;  which  in  the  Inquisition  is  given  by 
twisting  a  small  cord  hard  about  the  prisoner's  naked  arms, 


MODERN    OR   SPANISH   INQUISITION.  49 

centuries  and  a  half,  it  underwent  what  its  defenders 
have  termed  a  reform,  by  which  the  barbarity  and 
injustice  of  its  old  constitution  were  very  greatly 
increased,  making  it  a  still  more  atrocious  engine  of 
persecution  than  before.  After  this  period,  it  is 
known  by  the  name  of  the  modern,  or,  more 
properly,  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  for  this  develop- 
ment originated  in  Spain,  and  was  subsequently 
confined  to  the  Peninsula  and  its  dependencies. 
We  have  already  remarked  that  the  first  employ- 

and  hoisting  him  up  from  the  ground,  by  an  engine  to  which 
the  cord  is  fastened.  And,  as  if  the  miserable  prisoner's 
hanging  in  the  air  by  his  arms  were  not  enough,  he  has 
several  quassations  or  shakes  given  him,  which  is  done 
by  screwing  his  body  up  high,  and  letting  it  down  again 
with  a  jerk,  which  disjoints  his  arms ;  and,  after  that,  the 
torture  is  much  more  exquisite  than  it  was  before. 

"  When  the  prisoner  is  first  hoisted  from  the  ground,  an 
hour-glass  is  turned  up,  and  which,  if  he  does  not  prevent  it 
by  making  such  a  confession  of  his  heresies  as  the  inquisitor, 
that  is  present  all  the  while,  and  is  continually  asking  him 
questions,  expects  from  him,  must  run  out  before  he  is  taken 
down ;  to  promise  to  make  such  a  confession,  if  they  will 
take  him  off  the  rack,  not  being  sufficient  to  procure  him 
that  mercy,  no  more  than  his  crying  out  that  he  shall  expire 
immediately,  if  they  do  not  give  him  some  ease ;  that,  as  the 
inquisitors  tell  us,  being  no  more  than  all  that  are  upon  the 
rack  do  think  they  are  ready  to  do. 

"  If  the  prisoner  endures  the  rack  without  confessing  any- 
thing, which  few,  or  none,  though  never  so  innocent,  are  able 
to  do,  as  soon  as  the  hour-glass  is  out,  he  is  taken  down,  and 
E 


50  TORTURE    ON   THE   RACK. 

ment  of  the  Inquisition  was  against  the  Albigenses  ; 
the  reform,  or  augmentation,  of  its  powers  was 
demanded  on  the  plea  of  its  previous  inefficiency  to 
prevent  the  increasing  relapses  of  the  converted 
Jews,  or  New  Christians,  as  they  were  termed.  This 
people  had  settled  early  in  the  Peninsula,  and,  by 
means  of  their  characteristic  industry,  had,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  engrossed  the  wealth  of  the 
nation,  and  risen  to  great  influence,  both  in  Aragon 
and  Castile.     Their  prosperity  had  excited  the  envy 

carried  back  to  his  prison,  where  there  is  a  chirurgeon,  ready 
to  put  his  bones  in  joint.  And  though,  in  all  other  courts, 
the  prisoners  having  endured  the  rack  without  confessing 
the  crimes  for  which  they  were  tortured,  clears  them,  yet 
in  the  Inquisition,  where  whatsoever  humanity  and  right 
reason  have  established  in  favour  of  the  prisoner  is  left  to  the 
discretion  of  the  judge,  it  is  commonly  otherwise;  the 
prisoner  that  will  not  confess  anything  being  usually  racked 
twice,  and  if  they  stand  it  out,  though  few  of  them  can  do 
that,  thrice.  But  if  the  prisoner  makes  the  confession  the 
inquisitor  expects  he  should  on  the  rack,  it  is  writ  down 
word  for  word  by  the  notary,  and  is,  after  the  prisoner  has 
had  a  day  or  two's  rest,  carried  to  the  prisoner,  to  set  his 
hand  to  it,  which,  if  the  prisoner  does,  it  puts  an  end  to  his 
process,  the  want  of  suf&cient  evidence  to  have  convicted 
him  being  abundantly  supplied  by  this  extorted  confession, 
thus  signed  by  him ;  and  in  case  the  prisoner,  when  it  is 
brought  to  him,  refuseth  to  sign  it,  affirming  it  to  be  false,  and 
to  have  been  extorted  fx-om  him  by  the  extremity  of  the  tor- 
ture, he  is  carried  back  to  the  rack  a  second  time,  to  oblige 
him  to  repeat  and  sign  the  same  confession." — Qeddes'  Tracts. 


PERSECUTION    OF   THE   JEWS.  51 

of  the  populace,  who  were  not  slow  to  gratify  their 
religious  prejudices,  when  the  property  of  their 
victims  was  the  reward  of  their  zeal.  In  the  year 
1391,  more  than  5000  Jews  are  said  to  have  been 
thus  massacred,  in  different  cities  throughout  Spain. 
Such  was  the  terror  with  which  these  wholesale 
butcheries  inspired  these  persecuted  people,  that  vast 
crowds  of  those  who  escaped  purchased  their  personal 
safety  at  the  expense  of  their  religion,  and  submitted 
to  baptism.  Under  the  force  of  such  compulsory 
influences,  it  is  calculated  that  nearly  a  million,  in 
the  course  of  a  few  years,  outwardly  renounced 
Judaism,  and  made  profession  of  the  Catholic  faith.*" 
When  the  storm  of  popular  persecution  had  sub- 
sided, as  might  be  expected,  the  greater  part  of  these 
forced  converts  relapsed  into  the  religion  of  their 
fathers,  and  secretly  practised  its  rites,  while  publicly 
professing  Christianity.  As  their  sense  of  safety 
grew  stronger,  their  precautions  diminished,  and 
many  were,  consequently,  discovered  by  the  watchful 
familiars  of  the  Inquisition,  and  visited  by  its 
weightiest  penalties.  In  one  year  (1481),  more 
than  three  hundred  relapsed  Jews  thus  perished  at  the 
stake  j  besides  whom,  seventy-nine  were  condemned 
to  perpetual  imprisonment,  t     All  these  victims  were 

*  Mc.  Crie,  p.  87. 

+  Stebbing's  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  i.  p.  281. 


52  THE   SO-CALLED    REFORM 

drawn  from  the  single  city  of  Seville,  where  the  fires 
of  the  Inquisition  were  kept  so  constantly  at  work, 
that  the  prefect  was  obliged  to  construct  a  solid 
scaffold  of  stoDC,  in  a  field  outside  the  city  walls. 
Besides  these,  2000  underwent  a  similar  fate  in  various 
parts  of  Andalusia,  whilst  no  less  than  17,000  were 
subjected  to  less  extreme  penalties.  To  prevent  the 
entire  relapse  of  these  New  Christians,  a  more  effective 
agency  was  called  for ;  and  hence  the  reforTn  we 
have  mentioned.  But  the  jurisdiction  of  the  modern 
Inquisition  was  extended  over  the  Old  Christians, 
as  well  as  the  New  j  and  thus  to  them,  likewise,  it 
became  a  more  terrible  instrument  than  before  for 
discovering  and  punishing  waverers  in,  or  wanderers 
from,  the  faith. 

This  remodelling  of  the  Inquisition  occurred  in  the 
reign  of  Ferdinand,  under  whom,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  two  kingdoms  of  Aragon  and  Castile  had 
been  finally  united.  The  establishment  of  the  Holy 
Office  in  this  new  and  more  consolidated  and  per- 
manent form,  in  the  latter  kingdom,  was  first  sug- 
gested by  Alfonso  de  Hoycda,  prior  of  the  Dominican 
convent  of  Seville,  and  friar  Philip  de  Barberis, 
Inquisitor  of  the  kingdom  of  Sicily,  which  was  at 
that  time  subject  to  the  crown  of  Aragon.  Ferdi- 
nand eagerly  caught  at  the  suggestion  of  a  plan 
by  which  his  cofiers  would  be  filled  by  the  confiscated 


OP   THE   SPANISH   INQUISITION.  53 

property  of  the  condemned,  and  his  power  rendered 
still  more  despotic ;  but  Isabella,  a  princess  of  a 
mild  and  humane  character,  at  first  opposed  the 
introduction  of  so  terrible  an  engine  of  injustice  and 
cruelty.  Means,  however,  were  employed  to  alarm 
her  conscience,  and  convince  her  that  the  interests 
of  religion  imperatively  required  her  acquiescence 
in  the  proposed  scheme. 

The  superstitious  queen  yielded,  and  authorized 
her  ambassador  at  Rome  to  solicit  the  bull  for  the 
establishment  of  the  Inquisition  in  her  kingdom  of 
Castile.  The  bull  for  this  purpose  was  readily 
granted  in  November,  1478.  Isabella,  however, 
suspended  its  operations  for  two  years,  wishing  to 
try  gentle  measures  with  the  relapsed,  before  having 
recourse  to  the  fearful  logic  of  the  Holy  Ofiice  to 
convince  and  win  back  wanderers  from  the  fold 
of  the  Roman  Church.  A  catechism  was  expressly 
drawn  up  for  their  use,  embodying  the  chief  argu- 
ments against  Judaism,  but  to  no  purpose ;  the 
relapses  continued,  and  increased  in  number.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  powers  of  the  Inquisition  were  called 
into  action  to  stem  the  torrent  which  milder  agencies 
had  opposed  in  vain.  In  September,  1480,  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella,  who  were  then  staying  at  Medina 
del  Campo,  appointed  two  Dominicans  as  the  first 
inquisitors  in  the  kingdom  of  Castile,  with  an  assessor 


54  EFFICIENCY    OF   THE   INQUISITION 

and  a  fiscal  attorney,  who  established  their  court  in 
the  Dominican  convent  of  St.  Paul  at  Seville,  on  the 
2nd  of  January,  1481. 

In  1483,  the  two  Dominicans  were  superseded 
by  the  famous  Thomas  de  Torquemada,  a  friar  of 
the  same  order,  and  prior  of  Santa  Cruz,  in  Segovia, 
a  man  whose  soul  was  destitute  of  pity,  and  who,  in 
cruelty,  might  almost  pass  for  an  incarnation  of  the 
evil  principle.*  He  was  the  first  Inquisitor- General 
of  the  united  kingdoms  of  Aragon  and  Castile  and 
their  dependencies,  with  discretionary  powers  which 
rendered  him  in  a  measure  independent  both  of  the . 
pope  and  the  king.  He  could  refuse  obedience  to 
the  papal  bulls  and  decretals  of  which  he  did  not 
approve,  alleging,  as  his  excuse,  their  infringement 
on  the  rights  of  the  Spanish  monarchy,  whilst  he 
"might  in  a  similar  manner  evade  the  authority  of 
the  king,  by  falling  back  upon  the  ordinances  of  the 
pope,  which,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  forbade 
his  interference  with  the  secular  power. 

Shortly  after  his  appointment,  Torquemada  revised 
the  laws  of  the  Inquisition,  and  framed  a  new  code 
consisting  of  twenty-eight  articles,  based  chiefly  on 
the  older  Guide  foi'  Inquisitors,  of  Eymeric.  These 
laws,  which  were  promulgated   at  Seville  in   1484, 

*  History  of  Spain  cmd  Portugal  (Lardner's  Cyclo.),  vol.  ii. 
p.  272. 


UNDER   TORQUEMADA.  55 

are  given  by  Llorente,  in  the  6th  chapter  of  his 
History  of  the  Inquisition,  a  work  of  peculiar  au- 
thority in  all  that  relates  to  that  tribunal,  from  the 
official  situation  of  secretary,  held  by  the  author 
before  the  compilation  of  his  book. 

Under  Torquemada  and  his  successor  Valdes,  the 
Inquisition  was  brought  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
efficiency,  as  an  instrument  for  detecting  and  punish- 
ing the  smallest  religious  innovation.  Spreading 
like  one  vast  net-work  over  the  land,  it  embraced 
all  ranks  within  its  terrible  web,  repressing  every 
effiart  at  reformation  in  matters  of  faith,  and  shack- 
ling all  the  powers  of  the  human  mind.  Its  lynx- 
eyed  familiars  were  empowered  to  violate  the  sanctity 
of  the  domestic  circle,  and  intrude  at  all  hours  on 
the  privacy  of  every  dwelling  in  the  kingdom,  from 
the  baronial  castle  to  the  peasant's  hut.  The  feeblest 
whisper  of  a  thought  that  overstepped  the  prescribed 
boundaries  of  religious  doctrine  or  practice  was 
caught  up,  and  its  incautious  author  hurried  off  to 
expiate  his  treason  against  Eome  in  a  dungeon  or 
at  the  stake.  And  not  only  was  the  actual  guilt 
of  heresy  visited  by  such  punishment,  but  failure 
to  give  information  of  its  existence  wherever  known 
or  suspected,  was  considered  of  equal  enormity,  and 
visited  by  the  heaviest  of  its  penal  thunders.  On 
two  Sundays  during  Lent  in  each  year,  an  edict  was 


56  MODES  OF  procedure; 

published,  branding  concealment  as  a  mortal  sin, 
worthy  of  excommunication  or  death.  The  father 
was  commanded  to  inform  against  his  child,  and  the 
wife  against  her  husband.  Private  malice  and  selfish 
fears  were  alike  enlisted  to  secure  information,  how- 
ever false,  on  which  a  process  could  be  founded  and 
a  victim  ensnared. 

With  such  an  organization  spreading,  like  a 
great  upas-tree,  its  deadly  branches  over  every  corner 
of  the  land,  paralyzing  its  energies  and  crushing 
its  feeblest  attempt  at  liberty  of  thought  or  ac- 
tion, the  Avonder  is,  not  that  the  light  of  truth 
with  all  its  inherent  power  did  not  pour  its  full 
tide  on  that  benighted  country,  but  that  it  ever 
dawned  at  all.  That  it  did  so,  in  spite  of  such 
obstacles  as  opposed  it,  is  enough  to  satisfy  every 
one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  character  and  opera- 
tions of  this  tribunal,  that  but  for  it  Spain  would 
have  been  behind  none  of  the  other  nations  of 
Europe  in  her  adoption  of,  and  adherence  to,  the 
doctrines  of  the  Reformation.  But  for  it,  the  thick 
clouds  of  error  and  superstition  which  blacken  her 
spiritual  sky,  had  long  since  been  dissipated  by  the 
true  Light  of  Heaven,  and  her  people  been  en- 
lightened and  elevated  by  the  saving  knowledge 
which  it  reveals  to  our  fallen  world.  Its  repressive 
influence  on  every  aspiration  after  religious  know- 


FALSE   WITNESSES   AND    TORTURE.  57 

ledge,  might  be  still  further  illustrated  and  proved 
by  a  passing  reference  to  the  mode  of  process 
observed  by  that  dread  tribunal.  We  have  already 
said  that  its  method  of  procedure  differed  widely 
from  that  of  the  ordinary  courts  of  justice.  This 
will  be  at  once  seen.  When  the  Inquisition  dis- 
covered a  transgressor  of  their  laws,  either  by  report, 
by  their  spies,  or  by  an  informer,  he  was  cited  three 
times  to  appear  before  them,  and  if  he  did  not 
appear  he  was  forthwith  condemned  by  default. 
The  number  and  watchfulness  of  their  spies  rendered 
absconding  all  but  impossible.  When  once  in  their 
hands,  the  accused  was  permitted  to  have  no  inter- 
course with  any  of  his  friends.  The  charges  brought 
against  him,  and  the  parties  by  whom  they  had  been 
preferred,  were  both  concealed  from  him.  He  was 
allowed  to  adduce  no  evidence  of  his  innocence 
which  the  ingenuity  of  his  judges  could  keep  back, 
whilst  witnesses  of  the  vilest  character,  and,  it  might 
be,  animated  by  the  bitterest  enmity  towards  the 
prisoner,  were  listened  to,  and  their  evidence  against 
him  fully  and  gladly  received.  If,  after  the  evidence 
had  been  closed,  the  guilt  of  the  accused  were  not 
made  out,  even  to  the  satisfaction  of  tlieir  laws, 
torture  endeavoured  to  wring  forth  a  confession  that 
would  afford  a  shade  of  justification  for  his  consign- 
ment to  the  scaffold  or  the  stake.     Of  this  we  have 


58  TESTIMONY    OF   HISTORIANS 

already  spoken,  but  hear  Llorente,  the  historian 
lately  referred  to  : — "  I  do  not  stop,"  he  says,  "  to 
describe  the  several  kinds  of  torture  inflicted  on  the 
accused  by  order  of  the  Inquisition ;  this  task  having 
been  executed  with  sufficient  exactness  by  a  great 
many  historians.  On  this  head,  I  declare  that  none 
of  them  can  be  accused  of  exaggeration,  I  have 
read  many  processes  which  have  struck  and  pierced 
me  with  horror,  and  I  could  regard  the  Inquisitors 
who  had  recourse  to  such  methods  in  no  other  light 
than  that  of  cold-blooded  barbarians.  Suffice  it  to 
add,  that  the  council  of  the  Supreme  has  often  been 
obliged  to  forbid  the  repetition  of  the  torture  in  the 
same  process  ;  but  the  inquisitors,  by  an  abominable 
sophism,  have  found  means  to  render  this  prohibition 
almost  useless,  by  giving  the  name  of  suspension 
to  that  cessation  from  torture  which  is  imperiously 
demanded  by  the  imminent  danger  to  which  the 
victim  is  exposed  of  dying  among  their  hands.  My 
pen  refuses  to  trace  the  picture  of  these  horrors,  for 
I  know  nothing  more  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  charity 
and  compassion,  which  Jesus  Christ  inculcates  in  the 
Gospel,  than  this  conduct  of  the  inquisitors." 

During  the  first  thirty-five  years  of  its  existence, 
from  its  erection  in  Castile  till  the  appearance  of 
Luther  in  Germany,  Llorente  reckons  that,  according 
to  the  most  moderate  computation,  13,000  persons 


BESPECTING   THE   INQUISITION.  59 

were  burned  alive,  8700  were  burned  in  effigy,  and 
169,700  were  condemned  to  various  penances; 
making,  in  all,  191,400  persons  who  were  condemned 
by  the  Inquisition  in  Spain  during  that  period. 
This  estimate  is  probably  below  the  truth,  for  other 
writers  make  the  numbers  much  larger.  Puigblanch* 
reckons  that,  between  1480  and  1520,  the  number 
of  the  condemned  in  Andalusia  was  100,000;  whilst 
in  the  archbishopric  of  Seville  alone,  45,000  perished 
at  the  stake.  It  was  not,  however,  merely  out  of 
the  actual  cruelties  of  the  Inquisition  that  its  terrible 
power  to  arrest  the  progress  of  knowledge,  and 
rivet  the  chains  of  religious  bondage,  arose,  but  from 
the  social  degradation  which  gradually  attached  to 
the  objects  of  its  condemnation  or  even  suspicion. 
Instances  of  escape,  when  once  within  its  grasp,  did 
not  average  more  than  one  in  a  thousand ;  and  that 
solitary  exception,  whom  want  of  evidence  might 
have  saved,  returned  to  society  lost  for  ever  in  public 
opinion,  and  branded  by  a  conventional  infamy, 
heavier  and  blacker  than  that  of  the  pardoned 
murderer,  and  attaching  to  his  remotest  posterity. 
Fear  of  incurring  this,  operated  more  crushingly  on 
the  Spanish  mind,  than  dread  of  the  most  terrible 
physical  sufferings  which  the  Inquisition  could 
inflict.     No  doubt,  at  first,   these  filled  the  nation 

*  Inquisition  Unmasked,  vol.  ii.  p.  180. 


60  THE    BIBLE    FOEBIDDEN. 

with  a  sense  of  insecurity  and  terror ;  but,  after  a 
time,  such  feelings  became  blunted,  and  it  settled 
down  upon  the  country  as  a  great  moral  nightmare, 
that  paralyzed  every  faculty  of  the  mind,  and  ex- 
tinguished every  other  feeling,  but  one  of  crushing 
and  hopeless  oppression. 

Under  the  rigorous  administration  of  Torquemada, 
the  Holy  Office  soon  extended  its  operations  against 
the  persons  of  the  heterodox,  to  the  means  by  which 
heresy  was  promulgated.  Animated  by  the  true 
genius  of  Popery,  the  Bible  speedily  became  the 
especial  object  of  its  hostility.  Not  only  were 
translations  into  the  vernacular  penally  denounced, 
but  the  study  of  the  original  was  forbidden,  as 
heretical  and  dangerous.  In  1490,  many  copies  of 
the  Hebrew  text  were  burned  at  Seville,  by  order  of 
Torquemada ;  and  Llorente  tells  us  that,  in  an 
auto-da-fe  celebrated  about  the  same  time,  at  Sala- 
manca, six  thousand  volumes  were  condemned,  as 
containing  Judaism  and  magic,  and,  as  such,  were 
committed  to  the  flames.  The  course  thus  begun 
by  Torquem.ada  was  worthily  pursued  by  his  suc- 
cessors. The  writings  of  Lebrixa,  a  learned  gram- 
marian, were  seized  by  order  of  Deza,  Archbishop  of 
Seville,  who  was  at  that  time  Inquisitor-General,  and 
condemned  as  heretical,  because  they  contained  some 
grammatical    corrections   of   errors  that  had    crept 


LEBRJXA  AND  THE  AECHBISHOP.       61 

into  the  text  of  the  Vulgate.  In  an  apology,  subse- 
quently drawn  up  by  Lebrixa,  in  his  own  defence,  he 
says  : — "  The  Archbishop's  object  was  to  deter  me 
from  writing.  He  wished  to  extinguish  the  know- 
ledge of  the  two  languages  on  which  our  religion 
depends  ;  and  I  was  condemned  for  impiety,  because, 
being  no  divine,  but  a  mere  grammarian,  I  presumed 
to  treat  of  theological  subjects.  If  a  person  en- 
deavour to  restore  the  purity  of  the  sacred  text,  and 
point  out  the  mistakes  which  have  vitiated  it,  unless 
he  will  retract  his  opinions,  he  must  be  loaded  with 
infamy,  excommunicated,  and  doomed  to  an  igno- 
minious punishment !  Is  it  not  enough  that  I 
submit  my  judgment  to  the  will  of  Christ  in  the 
Scriptures  ?  Must  I  also  reject  as  false  what  is  as 
clear  and  evident  as  the  light  of  truth  itself?  What 
tyranny  !  To  hinder  a  man,  under  the  most  cruel 
pains,  from  saying  what  he  thinks,  though  he  express 
himself  with  the  utmost  respect  for  religion — to 
forbid  him  to  write  in  his  closet  or  in  the  solitude 
of  a  prison,  to  speak  to  himself,  or  even  think  !  On 
what  subject  shall  we  employ  our  thoughts,  if  we 
are  prohibited  from  directing  them  to  those  sacred 
oracles  which  have  been  the  delight  of  the  pious  in 
every  age,  and  on  which  they  have  meditated  by  day 
and  by  night  r' 

The  quickness  with  which  the  Inquisition  became 


62  NATIONAL   OPPOSITION. 

thus  formidably  organized,  must  not  lead  the  reader 
to  suppose  that  its  establishment  was  unopposed  by 
the  nation  at  large.  In  Aragon,  where  it  had  existed 
in  its  old  and  less  oppressive  form  for  two  centuries 
and  a  half  before  its  reform  and  introduction  into 
Castile,  its  tyrannical  and  iniquitous  character  had 
been  but  slowly  developed,  and  consequently  had 
not  startled  public  feeling  by  any  immediate  exhibi- 
tion of  its  execrable  character  and  tendencies ;  but 
in  the  latter  kingdom,  both  were  at  once  evident,  as 
the  tribunal  was  first  presented  to  the  unprepared 
Castilians  in  its  remodelled  and  more  terrible  form. 
The  cortes  of  Castile  joined  with  those  of  Catalonia 
and  Aragon,  in  representing  to  Ferdinand  the 
miseries  it  would  be  the  means  of  inflicting  on  the 
country,  and  prayed  for  its  suppression.  Failing  in 
this,  they  urged  for  a  radical  reform  in  its  cruel  and 
tyrannic  laws,  but  equally  in  vain.  The  crafty  policy 
of  that  monarch  would  not  readily  surrender  an 
instrument  of  so  much  power  in  crushing  the 
liberties  of  his  subjects,  and  firmly  establishing  his 
own  despotism  on  the  ruins  of  Spanish  freedom. 
Though  far  from  being  a  tyrant,  his  ideas  of  the 
kingly  prerogative  were  such  as  freed  him  from  all 
scruples  in  availing  himself  of  its  nefarious  aid  ;  and 
to  this  end  he  resisted  all  inducements  held  forth  to 
procure     even    a     modification    of    its    oppressive 


BRANCH    OFFICES.  63 

character.  In  the  year  1512,  an  offer  of  600,000 
crowns  was  made  by  the  New  Christians,  to  help 
him  in  carrying  on  the  war  in  which  he  subjugated 
Navarre,  merely  on  condition  that  the  evidence 
given  in  the  Inquisitorial  courts  should  be  published  ; 
but  his  wily  Minister,  Cardinal  Ximenez,  prevented 
even  this  concession,  by  placing  a  counter-sum  at  the 
disposal  of  his  wavering  master„  And  four  years 
later,  when  a  similar  offer  was  made  to  Charles  V., 
on  similar  conditions,  the  Cardinal  again  interfered, 
and  saved  his  favourite  organization  from  suffering 
any  curtailment  of  its  iniquitous  powers. 

Not  satisfied  with  this,  he  extended  its  benefits  to 
the  colonial  dependencies  of  Spain.  Branch  tribu- 
nals were  established  in  Cuba  in  America,  and  in  Oran 
in  Africa,  modelled  after  their  blood-stained  original 
at  home.  After  repeated  but  abortive  attempts  to 
free  themselves  from  this  oppressive  yoke,  the  people 
submitted,  and  in  time  became  reconciled,  by  habit, 
to  its  proceedings, — not  only  so,  indeed,  but,  harmo- 
nizing as  it  did  ostensibly  with  the  orthodox  faith, 
the  maintenance  of  whose  purity  was  the  avowed 
object  of  its  existence,  the  Inquisition,  which  had 
at  first  filled  every  breast  with  fear,  became  eventually 
the  object  of  the  nation's  warmest  veneration.  Yet 
this  resulted  from  no  good  feature  which  its  practical 
working  brought  to  light.      It  was  still  the  same 


64  THE   SOLITARY   DUNGEON. 

huge  monument  of  fanaticism,  treacliery,  and  cruelty 
— an  engine  of  priestly  tyranny  charged  with  destruc- 
tion to  the  religious  and  civil  well-being  of  Spain. 

As  we  look  back  on  the  crimsoned  pages  of  its 
history,  from  the  stand-point  of  light  and  liberty 
which  we  enjoy,  we  can  but  very  imperfectly  realize 
the  idea  of  its  essentially  atrocious  character  and 
tendencies.  The  mind  may  sicken  as  it  pictures  to 
itself  huge  buildings,  on  whose  black  and  furrowed 
walls  the  sun  rose  and  set  for  long  ages,  without  the 
wretched  inmates  of  the  damp  and  noisome  dungeons 
within  receiving  one  ray  of  light  or  comfort  from 
his  beams.  The  imagination  may  carry  us  back,  and 
enable  us  to  penetrate  those  sable  piles,  on  which 
whole  generations  looked  with  terror  and  dismay, 
and  show  us,  in  the  darkness  and  pestilential  atmo- 
sphere of  their  cells,  a  husband  torn  from  his  wife,  a 
mother  from  her  agonized  children,  an  only  and 
beloved  child  from  his  heart-broken  parents,  or  a 
priest  of  exemplary  piety  from  his  widowed  and 
attached  flock.  There,  alone  and  helpless  in  the 
solitary  dungeon,  more  like  a  huge  grave  than  a 
prison,  year  after  year,  it  might  be,  passed  away ;  the 
monotony  of  their  confinement  being  broken  in  upon 
only  by  the  efforts  of  their  tormentors  to  extort  self- 
accusation,  by  the  hellish  applications  of  the  pulley, 
the  chafing-dish,  or  the  rack.     Hope,  like  the  light 


FURTHER   OBSTACLES   TO   THE   REFORMATION.     65 

of  heaven,  was  shut  out ;  and  the  wretched  victims^ 
cut  off  from  all  the  endearments  and  companionships 
of  life^  dragged  out  their  gloomy  existence  in  silence 
and  despair.  Yet  to  this  tremendous  empire  of  terror 
was  given  the  superintendence  and  guardianship  of  a 
religion  whose  Author  was  the  very  incarnation  of 
meekness,  charity,  forbearance,  and  love  !  By  the 
practice  of  cruelties,  at  the  thoughts  of  which  the 
blood  almost  freezes  in  one's  veins,  it  professed  to 
defend  and  joropagate  that  Gospel  which  He  exhorted 
his  disciples  to  diffuse  by  inculcating  and  practising 
the  precepts  which  they  had  learnt  from  Him,  and 
seen  exemplified  in  his  spotless  life.  To  us  it  may 
seem  a  wonder,  that  it  was  not  levelled  to  the  ground 
by  the  rude  hand  of  popular  indignation,  long  cen- 
turies before  its  suppression ;  but  we  forget  how 
completely  it  had  paralyzed  the  nation,  and  deprived 
it  of  all  power  of  resistance. 

But  the  Holy  Office,  though  the  chief  was  not  the 
only  obstacle  to  the  spread  of  the  reformed  doctrines 
in  the  Peninsula.  Other  causes,  to  which  it  mainly ' 
gave  birth,  contributed  to  perpetuate  the  religious 
bondage  which  it  had  effectually  imposed  on  the 
minds  of  the  people.  In  acceding  to  its  establish- 
ment, the  crafty  Ferdinand  had  well  foreseen  how 
thoroughly  it  would  crush  the  civil  liberties  of  the 
nation,  and  place  the  whole  powers  of  government, 
P 


66  ORTHODOXY,    NATIONAL    HONOUR, 

without  limitation  or  control,  in  his  own  hands. 
Tliis  it  did.  The  old  jealousies,  too,  existing  between 
the  nobles  and  the  people,  were  made  use  of  in  es- 
tablishing the  royal  despotism  over  both.  The 
independent  domains  of  the  former  had  long  afforded 
secure  asylums  to  the  persecuted ;  but  these  privi- 
leged enclosures  were  invaded  by  Cardinal  Ximenez, 
when,  by  flattering  the  commons,  without  adding  to 
their  real  consequence,  he  deprived  the  nobility  of 
many  of  their  most  important  immunities.  They, 
in  their  turn,  sided  with  the  King  in  his  attack  on 
the  liberties  of  the  people,  and  thus  helped  to 
consummate  a  despotism  which  was  equally  fatal 
to  the  civil  and  religious  freedom  of  the  nation 
at  large. 

The  prominence  in  the  defence  and  propagation 
of  Catholicism,  thus  forced  upon  Spain  by  the  Inqui- 
sition and  its  allied  agencies,  gradually  implanted  in 
the  Spanish  mind  the  notion,  that  any  deviation  from 
the  orthodox  faith  was  a  stain  upon  the  nation's 
honour.  Hence  the  national  pride  became  enlisted 
on  the  anti-reformation  side.  A  people  who  looked 
upon  their  contests  with  Jews,  Moors,  and  Moriscoes, 
in  their  efforts  to  banish  every  blemish  from  their 
own  cherished  orthodoxy,  as  the  noblest  achieve- 
ments in  the  annals  of  their  nation's  glories,  were 
not  the  most  likely  to  embrace  doctrines  banned  by 


AND    NATIONAL   AMBITION.  67 

the  oracles  of  their  faith  as  the  most  damnable  of 
all  heresies.  Hence,  too,  the  religious  fanaticism 
which  led  to,  and  in  their  eyes  justified,  the  cruelties 
which  they  inflicted  on  the  natives  of  the  New 
World.  Then,  as  now,  with  Popery,  the  end  was 
considered  to  sanctify  the  means.  The  spread  of  the 
Catholic  faith  was,  in  their  opinion,  the  high  and 
holy  commission  which  their  honoured  nation  had 
been  chosen  to  execute ;  and  so  as  that  was  accom- 
plished, they  were  little  scrupulous  about  means.  We 
cannot  doubt  that  Columbus  himself  was  animated, 
to  some  extent,  by  such  an  ambition.  He  was  too 
much  permeated  by  the  religious  zeal  of  his  time,  to 
be  influenced  by  a  passion  for  nautical  discovery 
alone,  in  braving  the  discouragements  and  dangers 
against  which  his  indomitable  spirit  so  heroically 
and  successfully  contended.  Still  more  evident  was 
the  influence  of  his  proselyting  zeal  on  the  conduct 
of  those  who  followed  him  in  establishing  the  Spanish 
authority  in  the  New  World.  But  with  this  they 
associated  baser  motives,  from  which  he  had  been 
free.  How  unlikely,  then,  was  a  nation,  that  gloried 
in  its  championship  of  the  faith,  to  permit  its  own 
sacred  soil  to  be  polluted  by  the  seeds  of  heresy  ! 

In  addition  to  these  causes  which  operated  against 
the  success  of  Protestantism  in  Spain,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  how  much  it  was  the  interest  of  Charles  V., 


6S  OPPOSITION    OF   CHARLES    V. 

in  whose  reign  the  great  struggle  for  emancipation 
from  reh'gious  thraldom  began,  to  cultivate  the 
friendship  of  Kome.  "  The  Emperor  Charles,"  said 
Luther,  a  few  days  after  the  landing  of  this  prince 
at  Genoa,  "has  determined,  to  show  himself  more 
cruel  against  us  than  the  Turk  himself ;  and  he  has 
already  uttered  the  most  horrible  threats.  Behold 
the  haur  of  Christ's  agony  and  weakness.  Let  us 
pray  for  all  those  who  will  soon  have  to  endure 
captivity  and  death."  Nor  were  the  Reformer's 
anticipations  groundless.  The  political  interests  of 
the  Emperor,  no  less  than  his  personal  attachment  to 
the  Catholic  faith,  helped  to  keep  him  faithful  to  his 
coronation  oath,  before  Clement  VII.,  at  Bologna  : — 
"  I  swear  to  be,  with  all  my  powers  and  resources, 
the  perpetual  defender  of  the  pontifical  dignity,  and 
of  the  Church  of  Rome."  The  spirit  of  deadly 
antipathy  to  the  reformed  doctrines,  which  animated 
himself  and  his  soldiers  in  their  wars  in  Germany, 
was  transmitted  to  Spain,  and  there  intensified  by 
the  causes  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  as  well 
as  by  the  subsequent  triumph  of  the  Reformation  in 
the  German  empire  and  elsewhere.  But  it  required 
the  combined  operation  of  all  these  opposing  causes, 
to  shut  out  the  rays  of  that  sun  which  had  arisen  on 
Europe  with  healing  on  his  wings.  But  for  their 
united  antagonism,  the  beams  of  light  which  forced 


TO    THE   REFORMATION.  69 

their  way  over  the  Pyrenees,  through  the  ungenial 
atmosphere  of  France,  would  have  dispelled  for  ever 
the  spiritual  darkness  that  hung,  and  still  hangs,  like 
a  great  plague-cloud,  shutting  out  "  life  and  immor- 
tality in  the  Gospel"  from  Spain.  But  even  her 
thick  mists  of  superstition  and  ignorance  shall  yet  be 
penetrated  by  its  brightness,  for  the  word  of  our 
covenant- keeping  God  is  pledged,  that  "the  know- 
ledge of  the  Lord  shall  cover  the  earthy  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea." 


70  HOW  THE   LUTHERAN  DOCTKINES 


i,\K^tix  imtt\. 


COMMENCEMENT   OF  THE   REFORMATION   IN   SPAIN. 

Having  in  the  previous  chapters  glanced  at  the 
state  of  Spain,  political  and  ecclesiastical,  down  to 
the  time  of  the  Eeformation,  and  at  the  chief  obsta- 
cles against  which  the  reformed  doctrines  had  to 
contend,  we  pass  on  to  notice  the  means  by  which 
they  were  introduced  into  the  Peninsula. 
.  We  have  seen  how  unfavourably  Spain  was  situated 
for  the  reception  and  spread  of  the  doctrines  which 
Luther  and  his  followers  were  disseminating  so 
widely  through  Germany,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
16th  century.  A  powerful  priesthood,  with  scaffolds 
and  treasures  at  its  disposal,  held  the  country  bound 
hand  and  foot.  The  least  indication  of  disaffection 
asfainst  the   established   faith  was  visited  with  its 


WERE   INTRODUCED    INTO    SPAIN.  71 

speedy  and  terrible  vengeance.  The  general  atten- 
tion, too,  of  the  nation  was  engrossed  by  the  treasures 
which  Columbus  had  revealed  in  the  far  west,  and 
heeded  not  the  more  enduring  and  nobler  riches 
which  Luther  was  bringing  to  light,  and  holding  up 
to  men  in  all  their  heavenly  brightness,  freed  from 
the  incrustations  of  error  and  superstition  with 
which  Rome  had  overlaid  them.  But  at  the  bottom 
the  Spanish  were  a  religiously  disposed  race.  In 
the  early  ages  of  the  Church's  history  they  had  clung 
stedfastly  to  the  simple  faith  of  the  Gospel,  and 
Popery,  with  all  its  debasing  and  stupefying  in- 
fluences, cojild  not  destroy  the  essential  nobility  in 
their  national  character.  Now  and  then  it  showed 
that  it  still  lived,  fettered  and  partially  corrupted 
though  it  had  been. 

The  introduction  of  the  reformed  opinions  into 
Spain  might  be  looked  for  as  a  natural  consequence 
of  the  intimate  connection  between  that  country  and 
Germany  at  the  time  when  the  Reformation  began. 
This  connection  produced  a  frequency  of  communica- 
tion, for  political  purposes,  which  opened  up  an  easy 
way  for  the  extension  of  the  Lutheran  doctrines  to 
the  Peninsula.  Several  of  the  Reformers'  works 
were,  at  an  early  period  of  the  religious  movement 
in  Germany,  transmitted  to  Spain,  and  were  there 
translated  into  the  vernacular  and  extensively  cir- 


72  BELIGIOUS    FREEDOM. 

culated  amongst  the  common  people.  The  corres- 
pondence with  their  friends  at  home  of  many  men 
of  ability  and  learning,  who  had  crossed  the  Pyrenees 
and  gone  to  the  Netherlands  or  Germany,  for  pur- 
poses of  commerce  or  as  attendants  of  the  imperial 
court,  served  to  make  the  proceedings  in  the  latter 
country  still  more  generally  known,  and  to  excite 
amongst  the  Spaniards  a  spirit  of  inquiry  as  to  the 
nature  and  progress  of  the  dispute  in  which  Luther 
was  then  engaged  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  But, 
besides  curiosity,  there  were  other  and  more  weighty 
reasons  why  they  should  feel  a  deep  interest  in  the 
Reformation.  Suffering  as  they  were  from  the 
odious  tyranny  of  the  Inquisition,  they  would 
eagerly  catch  at  any  chance  of  emancipation  from 
its  thraldom ;  and  any  information,  consequently, 
which  was  given  them  respecting  the  daring  attack 
on  the  domination  of  the  Romish  hierarchy,  would 
inspire  all  who  were  possessed  of  any  freedom  of 
thought  with  a  wish  to  join  in  the  struggle  for 
religious  liberty.  Spain  could  boast  of  many 
such  persons  at  the  time  we  write  of — men  who 
were  anxious  to  enlighten  their  ignorant  and 
deluded  countrymen,  and,  if  need  be,  to  do  battle 
for  the  faith  which  was  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 

Foremost  in  this  honourable  band  of  men  who 
became  acquainted  with  the  truth,  and  laboured  to 


JUAN   VALDES.  73 

make  it  known  in  Spain,  stands  the  name  of  Juan 
Valdes. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  good  man  and 
true  patriot  was  the  first  convert  to  the  Protestant 
doctrines  in  the  Peninsula.  Some  have  thought 
that  they  were  embraced  first  by  some  members 
of  the  order  of  Franciscans,  because  the  General  of 
that  brotherhood  obtained  from  the  Pope  (Clement 
VII.)  in  1526,  power  to  absolve  such  of  the  brethren 
as  had  imbibed  the  reformed  opinions,  and  were 
willing  to  recant.  This,  however,  must  be  con- 
sidered rather  as  a  prospective  privilege,  exempting 
the  Franciscans  from  the  authority  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, whose  officers  belonged  to  the  rival  order  of 
Dominicans. 

Valdes  was  descended  from  a  good  family,  and 
had  received  a  liberal  education  at  the  University 
of  Alcala.  Having  attached  himself  to  the  imperial 
court,  he  left  Spain  in  the  year  1535,  in  company 
with  the  Emperor,  by  whom  he  was  sent  to  act  as 
secretary  to  the  Viceroy  of  Naples,  which  kingdom, 
as  we  have  already  noticed  in  the  first  chapter, 
belonged  at  that  time  to  Spain.  Before  leaving  his 
native  land,  however,  Valdes  had  embraced  many  of 
the  Lutheran  doctrines,  from  the  books  which,  as 
we  have  remarked,  had  been  largely  though  privately 
circulated  in  the  Peninsula.     He  had  been  one  of 


74  HERETICAL   PROPOSITIONS. 

the  earliest  of  those  into  whose  hands  these  books 
had  fallen,  and  had  no  sooner  become  a  convert 
to  the  doctrines  which  they  inculcated,  than  he 
laboured  hard,  and  not  unsuccessfully,  to  promote 
their  circulation  amongst  his  countrymen.  That  he 
had  been  thus  early  imbued  with  the  reformed 
opinions,  appears  from  a  treatise  drawn  up  by  him, 
and  called  Advice  on  the  Interpreters  of  Sacred 
Scripture.  This  tract  was  originally  written  in  the 
form  of  a  letter  to  his  friend  Bartolom6  Carranza, 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  and  subsequently 
the  victim  of  a  painful  and  protracted  persecution 
by  the  Inquisition  for  the  freedom  of  his  opinions.* 
Being  found  amongst  his  papers,  this  treatise  formed 
one  of  the  heaviest  articles  of  charge  against  him. 
It  contained,  amongst  others,  the  following  proposi- 
tions : — First,  "  that  in  order  to  understand  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,  we  must  not  rely  on  the  interpretation  of 
the  Fathers."  Second,  "that  we  are  justified  by  a 
lively  faith  in  the  sufferings  and  death  of  our  Sa- 
viour." And  third,  "  that  we  may  attain  to  certainty 
concerning  our  justification."  But  this  "  advice," 
though  containing  most  of  the  essential  doctrines  of 
the  Protestant  creed,  is  not  without  traces  of  the 
transcendental  divinity  of  John  Tauler,  a  distin- 
guished German  ecclesiastic   of   the   Hth  century. 

*  See  the  Appendix. 


HODRIGO    DE    VALER.  75 

Tauler  belonged  to  the  class  of  divines  usually  called 
Mystics,  who,  disgusted  with  the  dry  and  abstruse 
theology  of  the  scholastic  divines,  ran  into  the  oppo- 
site extreme,  and  resolved  religion  into  contempla- 
tion and  meditation,  and  dwelt  mainly  on  the  love 
of  God  and  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  without  incul- 
cating the  necessity  of  clear  and  distinct  views  of 
divine  truth.  Luther  himself,  at  an  early  period  of 
his  life,  had  been  greatly  attached  to  the  writings 
of  Tauler,  and  had  republished  part  of  them  under 
the  title  of  German  Theology, 

Though  absent  from  Spain,  Valdes  contributed 
greatly  to  the  spread  of  the  reformed  doctrines  by 
his  writings,  which  were  published  in  Spanish,  and 
widely  circulated  amongst  his  countrymen.  He 
published  a  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  and  another  on  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  both  of  which  did  good  service  as 
testimonies   to    the    truth   in    Spain. 

But  it  required  a  more  daring  spirit  than  that 
of  Yaldes  to  unfurl  and  defend  the  banner  of  the 
Cross  in  the  land  of  the  Inquisition,  and  that  spirit 
was  raised  up.  The  seed  which  the  writings  of  Juan 
Valdes  had  sown,  bore  fruit  under  the  fearless  and 
unflinching  culture  of  Rodrigo  de  Valer.  Like  Valdes, 
De  Valer  had  sprung  from  a  noble  family.  He  was 
born  at  Lebrixa,  about  thirty  miles  from   the  city 


76  "the  entrance  of  thy  word 

of  Seville,  and,  like  others  of  his  rank,  had  been 
reared  amid  the  gaieties  and  dissipations  which  pre- 
vailed amongst  the  wealthy  and  luxurious  grandees 
of  Spain.  In  Seville,  where  he  chiefly  resided,  he 
was  foremost  in  every  scene  of  fashionable  amuse- 
ment and  gallantry,  outvying  his  companions  in  the 
splendour  of  his  equipage  and  the  costly  extrava- 
gance of  his  dress.  But  a  change  came  over  the 
spirit  of  his  mind,  as  complete  as  it  was  sudden. 
His  usual  haunts  of  pleasure  were  abandoned,  and 
his  dissipated  companions  forsaken  for  ever.  The 
leader  of  fashion  was  found  no  longer  in  his  former 
place.  Shut  up  in  the  retirement  of  his  closet,  he 
had  withdrawn  himself  for  a  time  from  the  outward 
world,  to  give  himself  up  to  meditation  and  prayer. 
By  some  happy  accident,  he  had  fallen  in  with  and 
perused  some  of  the  Lutheran  books  which  Valdes 
and  others  had  introduced  into  Spain ;  led  by  them 
to  view  religion  as  he  had  never  done  before,  he 
procured  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures,  and  studied  it 
prayerfully  in  the  retirement  of  his  home.  The  only 
copy  he  could  procure  was  the  Vulgate ;  he  studied 
Latin,  with  which  he  had  been  previously  slightly 
acquainted,  and  mastered  its  contents,  and  was  led 
by  the  knowledge  thus  given  him,  to  see  the  vile 
superstitions  and  soul-destroying  character  of  Popery. 
And  when  this  grand  revelation  had  been  made  to 


GIVETH    LIGHT."  77 

his  mind,  he  did  not  selfishly  conceal  it  in  the  privacy 
of  his  own  bosom,  but  in  the  true  spirit  of  every 
one  who  has  felt  its  regenerating  powers,  sought 
to  make  known  to  others  that  truth  which  had  sav- 
ingly dawned  upon  his  own  mind.  He  returned  to 
society,  but  another  spirit  was  upon  him.  He  was 
a  new  man.  His  life  had  a  high  and  holy  purpose, 
and  manfully  he  wrought  it  out.  Seeking  the 
society  of  the  monks  and  friars,  he  set  before  them, 
at  first  gently  and  afterwards  more  severely,  the  sad 
corruption  of  the  Church,  both  in  faith  and  practice ; 
he  exhorted  them  to  attempt  its  reform,  and  to  set 
before  the  people,  both  by  precept  and  example,  a 
living  picture  of  pure  and  primitive  Christianity. 
Amongst  his  friends  and  acquaintances  he  intro- 
duced similar  topics,  and  appealed  to  the  sacred 
writings  as  the  only  rule  of  life  and  conduct  for 
man.  The  efforts  thus  made  to  spread  a  knowledge 
of  the  truth,  were  not  without  their  beneficial  effects. 
His  hearers  became  more  numerous  and  attentive. 
The  Lutheran  books,  which  he  scrupled  not  openly 
to  recommend,  were  eagerly  sought  for  and  carefully 
studied,  and  thus  many  were  brought  to  the  know- 
ledge  of  salvation. 

But  the  [nquisition  was  not  unobservant  of  his 
proceedings.  The  results  which  we  have  mentioned 
were  accomplished  in  a  very  short  space   of   time. 


78  CONFISCATION    AND   IMPRISONMENT. 

The  ever-watchful  familiars  soon  cut  short  his  in- 
structions. He  was  brought  before  the  Inquisitors, 
and  at  his  examination  openly  avowed  and  defended 
the  doctrines  which  he  had  publicly  taught.  His 
fate  would  have  been  sure  and  speedy,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  influence  of  some  powerful  individuals, 
who  had  secretly  imbibed  his  doctrines,  and  exerted 
themselves  on  his  behalf.  This,  joined  to  the  purity 
of  his  descent  and  the  exalted  rank  of  his  family, 
procured  for  him  on  the  ground  of  reported  insanity, 
a  milder  sentence  than  so  open  and  dangerous  a 
heretic  would  otherwise  have  received  ;  his  property 
was  confiscated  and  himself  set  at  liberty. 

But  the  dauntless  Valer  was  not  to  be  deterred. 
He  felt  that  he  had  received  a  commission,  and  he 
was  resolved  to  fulfil  it.  Neither  loss  of  property 
nor  threats  of  severer  punishment,  could  induce 
him  to  be  silent  on  his  great  theme.  Again  was 
his  voice  raised  to  denounce  the  errors  of  Popery, 
and  make  known  to  a  people  perishing  for  lack  of 
knowledge,  the  pure  and  simple  truths  of  the  ever- 
lasting Gospel.  But  it  was  soon  silenced  in  the 
dungeons  of  the  Inquisition,  whence  he  was  speedily 
transferred,  in  the  year  1541,  as  a  prisoner  for  life, 
to  a  monastery  belonging  to  San  Lucar,  a  town  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Guadalquivir,  where  he  died  about 
the  age  of  fifty.     The  sanbenito,  or  cloak  of  infamy, 


DR.    EGIDIO.  79 

which  he  had  been  compelled  to  wear,  was  hung  up 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Seville,  with  this  inscription  : — 
Eodrigo  Valer,  a  citizen  of  Lebrixa  and  Seville,  an 
apostate  and  false  apostle,  who  pretended  to  be  sent 
of  God." 

De  Valer  had  not  worked  in  vain.  He  left  behind 
him  followers  able  and  willing  to  carry  on  the  work 
which  he  had  begun.  The  man  whom  we  next  meet 
with  labouring  in  the  same  cause  was  Juan  Gil, 
usually  called  Dr.  Egidio.  This  worthy  disciple 
and  successor  of  De  Valer,  was  born  at  Olvera,  a 
Town  in  Aragon,  and  educated  at  the  same  univer- 
sity as  Valdes,  where  he  gained  great  distinctioya  for 
his  profound  acquaintance  with  scholastic  theology. 
On  leaving  Alcala,  he  was  appointed  to  the  chair 
of  divinity  at  Siguenza,  and  soon  after  was  chosen 
Canon  Magistral  in  the  metropolitan  church  of 
Seville.  But,  though  a  profound  theologian,  he 
proved  an  unpopular  preacher,  and  soon  felt  the 
consciousness  of  this  so  keenly  that  he  became 
anxious  to  resign  his  office.  At  this  juncture  he 
became  acquainted  with  De  Valer.  The  secret  of 
his  unpopularity  was  soon  discovered,  and  the  de- 
fect which  had  rendered  his  discourses  so  dry  and 
unprofitable,  was  remedied  by  a  diligent  and  prayer- 
ful perusal  of  the  word  of  God.  Henceforth  a 
new  spirit  animated  his   sermons  ;  no  longer   cold 


80  CAUTION    OF   EGIDTO. 

and  abstruse,  he  tenderly  but  powerfully  appealed 
to  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  his  hearers,  and 
became  as  popular  as  he  had  been  previously  dis- 
liked. But  this  change  in  his  preaching  had 
higher  and  more  valuable  results  than  mere  empty 
fame.  He  opened  up  to  his  audience  the  grand 
truths  of  the  Gospel,  showed  them  its  complete 
adaptation  to  meet  all  the  wants  and  longings  of  the 
human  heart,  and  warned  them  to  place  no  confi- 
dence in  mere  rites  and  ceremonies,  but  in  the 
method  of  salvation  made  known  in  the  Gospel. 
But,  thoroughly  alive  to  the  perilous  position  which 
he  occupied,  he  made  known  these  truths  with  such 
prudential  caution  as  screened  him  from  the  dan- 
gerous notice  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
taken  of  his  teaching.  By  this  watchful  and  neces- 
sary prudence,  he  was  enabled  to  continue  undis- 
turbed and  unsuspected  his  work  of  enlightenment 
in  Seville.  De  Montes,  one  of  his  own  converts, 
thus  describes  the  character  and  effect  of  his  instruc- 
tions : — "Among  the  other  gifts  divinely  bestowed 
on  this  holy  man,  was  the  singular  faculty  which 
he  had  of  kindling  in  the  breast  of  those  who 
listened  to  his  teaching  a  sacred  flame  which  ani- 
mated them  in  all  the  exercises  of  piety,  internal 
and  external,  and  made  them  not  only  willing  to 
take  up  the  Cross,  but  cheerful,  in  the  prospect  of 


VARGAS   AND    CONST ANTINE.  81 

the  sufferings  of  which  they  stood  in  jeopardy  every 
hour ;  a  clear  proof  that  the  Master  whom  he  served 
was  present  with  him,  by  His  Spirit,  engraving  the 
doctrine  which  he  taught  on  the  hearts  of  his 
hearers."  * 

But  Egidio  was  not  alone  in  his  efforts  to  spread 
abroad  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 
Besides  those  who,  like  himself,  had  been  brought 
to  it  by  the  instructions  of  De  Valer,  he  was  him- 
self honoured  to  make  converts  who  should  carry 
on  the  work  of  God  in  benighted  Spain.  The 
most  distinguished  of  these  were  Doctor  Vargas  and 
Constantino  Ponce  de  la  Fuente,  who  had  been  his 
fellow-students  at  Alcala.  In  concert  with  these 
friends,  Egidio  carried  on  the  dissemination  of  the 
reformed  doctrines  more  widely  than  his  own  un- 
aided efforts  enabled  him  previously  to  effect.  Still, 
the  same  wise  caution  was  observed,  and  nothing 
so  said  or  done  that  could  fairly  expose  them  to 
the  suspicion  of  heresy.  Their  zeal,  however,  had 
the  effect  of  calling  forth  the  counter-diligence  of  the 
clergy,  who  inculcated  with  renewed  energy  the 
necessity  of  all  the  religious  observances,  prayers, 
fastings,  and  penances,  which  the  church  of  Rome 
insists  on  as  necessary  to  salvation.  For  a  time 
their  long  acknowledged  authority  swayed  the  great 

*  Inquidtionis  Hispanicce  Artes  Detects,  p.  231. 
G 


8'2  CONSTANCY    OF   EGIDIO 

mass  of  the  people,  but  the  perseverance  of  Egidio 
and  his  friends,  added  to  their  prudence,  acknow- 
ledged piety,  and  purity  of  life,  gradually  subdued 
the  prejudices  which  their  opponents  had  succeeded 
in  raising  against  them.  During  the  day,  their 
time  was  profitably  occupied  in  the  public  discharge 
of  their  clerical  duties,  and  their  evenings  were  gene- 
rally spent  in  planning  those  measures  which  would 
be  most  conducive  to  the  furtherance  of  the  great 
work  in  which  they  were  engaged.  By  this  means 
they  soon  obtained  large  and  attentive  audiences,  to 
whom  they  made  known  the  glad  tidings  which  the 
Gospel  reveals  to  man.  From  Seville,  as  a  centre, 
these  salutary  influences  spread  into  the  surrounding 
country,  and  there  rested,  as  bread  cast  upon  the 
waters,  which  was  to  appear  after  many  days.  Their 
increasing  popularity  at  length  aroused  the  sus- 
picions of  the  Holy  Office,  whose  detective  agencies 
were  soon  put  into  operation.  At  this  juncture  the 
friends  were  separated ;  Vargas  died,  and  Constan- 
tine  was  removed  to  the  Low  Countries.  Thus 
stripped  of  his  allies,  the  noble  Egidio  was  left  to 
bear  the  weight  of  the  gathering  storm.  But  he 
quailed  not ;  his  trust  was  in  Him  whose  glory  he 
was  endeavouring  to  promote,  and  he  feared  not 
what  man  could  do  unto  him.  The  resentment  of 
his  enemies  was  still  further  inflamed  at  this  time 


WHEN    SEIZED    BY   THE    INQUISITION.  83 

by  his  nomination,  by  the  Emperor,  to  the  vacant 
bishopric  of  Tortosa,  one  of  the  richest  sees  in  Spain. 
They  resolved  to  prevent  his  obtaining  it,  and,  to 
this  end,  at  once  denounced  him  as  a  heretic  to 
the  Inquisition.  He  was  seized  and  thrown  into 
its  dungeons,  notwithstanding  the  influence  which 
Charles  exerted  on  his  behalf.  He  was  charged  with 
maintaining  and  publicly  teaching  the  doctrine  of 
salvation  by  faith,  and  condemning  the  Popish  doc- 
trines of  the  sufficiency  of  good  works,  purgatory, 
auricular  confession,  and  the  worship  of  images  and 
saints.  The  defence  which  he  drew  up,  contained 
a  full  statement  of  his  views  on  justification,  and 
the  grounds  on  which  he  held  them.  The  frankness 
which  this  document  displayed,  gave  a  handle  to  his 
foes,  which  they  were  not  slow  in  making  use  of. 
His  situation  now  became  eminently  dangerous,  and 
justly  excited  the  alarm  of  his  friends.  All  their 
influence  was  employed  on  his  behalf.  The  Emperor 
wrote  in  his  favour  to  the  Inquisitor-General,  whose 
clemency  was  likewise  supplicated  by  the  Chapter 
of  Seville,  with  whom  Egidio  had  been  unusually 
popular.  This,  added  to  the  exertions  of  many  of 
the  nobility  on  behalf  of  their  favourite  preacher, 
led  the  Inquisitors  to  adopt  a  more  moderate  course 
than  they  would  otherwise  have  pursued.  The 
charges  against  him  were  allowed  to  be  submitted 


84  TREACHERY    OF   SOTO. 

to  two  special  arbiters,  chosen,  one  by  the  accused, 
and  the  other  by  the  Holy  Office.  Egidio  chose 
Domingo  de  Soto,  a  Dominican  friar,  and  professor 
at  Salamanca,  who  was  his  professed  friend,  and  had 
privately  declared  his  attachment  to  the  reformed 
doctrine.  It  was  agreed  between  the  prisoner  and 
his  arbiter,  that  both  should  draw  up  a  paper  con- 
taining his  own  views  on  the  disputed  doctrine  of 
justification,  and  that  these  should  be  read  before 
the  Inquisitors.  On  the  day  of  trial,  Egidio  and 
Soto  were  placed  at  considerable  distance  from  each 
other,  in  the  cathedral  of  Seville,  where,  by  a  special 
deviation  from  the  usual  custom,  the  arguments  were 
to  be  heard,  Soto  read  first,  and,  at  the  end  of  each 
proposition,  looked  to  Egidio  for  approval  of  what 
he  had  advanced.  In  full  reliance  on  the  honesty  of 
his  supposed  friend,  this  was  given  ;  though  the  dis- 
tance prevented  his  distinctly  making  out  what  was 
being  read.  This  was  in  direct  contradiction  of  what 
Egidio  next  gave  forth  as  his  sentiments  on  the  doc- 
trines at  issue.  The  two  declarations  thus  clashing, 
judgment  was  at  once  pronounced  on  the  accused, 
as  guilty  of  the  Lutheran  heresy.  The  influence 
already  exerted  on  his  behalf  saved  him  from  the 
stake,  but  he  was  condemned  "to  abjure  the  pro- 
positions imputed  to  him,  to  be  imprisoned  for  three 
years,  to  abstain  from  writing  or  teaching  for  ten 


CONSEQUENT    CONDEMNATION   OF   EGIDIO.         85 

years,  and  not  to  leave  the  kingdom  during  that 
period,  under  pain  of  being  punished  as  a  formal  or 
relapsed  lieretic,"  in  other  words,  of  being  burned 
alive.  It  was  not  till  after  his  return  to  prison,  that 
he  learned  the  baseness  of  the  treacherous  Soto. 

This  account  of  the  trial  is  given  by  De  Montes, 
who  received  his  information  from  Egidio  himself  in 
prison.  The  condemnation  of  the  bishop-elect  was 
the  signal  for  a  rush  of  hungry  candidates  for  the 
rich  see  of  Tortosa.  The  most  fulsome  flattery  was 
poured  in,  from  all  side3,  on  Cardinal  Granville, 
who  was  at  that  time  bishop  of  Anas,  and  prime 
minister  of  Spain.  A  specimen  or  two  of  the  appli- 
cations will  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  disin- 
terested zeal  with  which  the  holy  fathers  urged  their 
respective  claims  and  fitness  for  the  office  sought  for. 
One  writes  to  the  Cardinal  thus  : — "  I  shall  be  in- 
finitely obliged  to  you  to  think  of  me — the  least  of 
your  servants — provided  his  lordship  of  Elna  shall 
be  translated  to  the  bishopric  of  Tortosa,  now 
vacant."  This  applicant  was  a  modest  monk,  who 
desired  promotion  "only  for  the  good  of  the  Church." 
"  His  lordship  of  Elna,"  referred  to,  in  seeking  for 
translation,  surpassed  his  less  exalted  rival  in  the 
humility  of  his  application.  Addressing  the  Car- 
dinal, without  at  first  mentioning  his  object,  he  begs 
him,  as  a   preparative,   to  command   him  "as  the 


86  SAMPLES    OF   SPANISH    CLERGY 

meanest  domestic  of  his  household,"  and  then  en- 
larging on  the  many  and  rare  excellencies  of  his 
eminence,  which  had  everywhere  gained  him  such 
profound  affection  and  respect,  he  winds  up  by  as- 
suring the  Cardinal,  that  he  constantly  remembered 
him  "in  his  poor  sacrifices,  the  fittest  time  to  make 
mention  of  one's  master."  Waxing  more  courageous 
in  his  second  letter,  the  disinterested  bishop,  fully 
conscious  of  his  own  imperfections,  acknowledges 
that  the  duties  of  the  Tortosan  see  were  "  too  heavy 
a  burden  for  his  weak  shoulders,"  but  declares  that 
his  pious  exercises  would  be  less  interrupted  in  it 
than  in  Roussillon,  where  he  was  constantly  dis- 
turbed by  the  din  of  war,  which  opposed  his  "  strong 
desire  to  end  his  days  in  tending  his  infirm  sheep  in 
the  peace  of  God."  Failing  in  his  application,  the 
persevering  prelate  renewed  it  during  the  following 
year,  and  tried  another  line  of  argument.  He  re- 
minded the  Cardinal,  that  his  majesty  had  certain 
dues  in  Valencia  which  were  largely  in  arrear,  as 
would  be  seen  by  the  lists  which  he,  having  the 
king's  interests  deeply  at  heart,  had  drawn  up  and 
now  sent  to  the  premier,  whom  he  disinterestedly 
'assured  that  he  would  see  that  these  arrears  should 
be  paid  up  if  he  were  installed  in  the  vacant  see,  as 
he  should  then  "have  it  in  his  power  to  serve  God 
and  the  king  at  the  same  time."     His  lordship  of 


IN   THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY.  87 

Algerl,  in  Sardinia,  which  then  belonged  to  Spain, 
in  wishing  to  be  transferred  to  the  peninsular 
bishopric,  "  was  not  influenced  by  avarice  in  making 
his  request,"  but  was  only  anxious  to  be  in  a  posi- 
tion in  which  he  would  be  "  at  more  liberty  to  serve 
God,  and  pray  for  the  life  of  the  king  and  his 
minister"  the  Cardinal.*     Ah  his  disce  omnes. 

Such  were  the  Spanish  clergy  in  the  16th  cen- 
tury. With  such  guardians,  religion  might  well 
degenerate  into  superstition,  even  had  they  not 
brought  to  bear  upon  it,  in  addition,  the  corrupting 
influences  of  full-blown  Popery.  Well  might  the 
broad  shadows  of  spiritual  night  hang  thick  and 
heavy  over  the  most  magnificent  country  in  the 
world — the  fertile  land  of  the  vine  and  olive  ! 

After  lingering  for  some  months  in  the  dungeons 
of  the  Inquisition,  Egidio  was  brought  forth  amongst 
the  criminals  who  were  condemned  to  penance,  in 
an  auto-da-fe  (act  of  faith)  celebrated  in  Seville  in 
the  year  1552.t     Having  fulfilled  the  term  of  his 

*  Geddes'  Miscellaneoits  Tracts,  p.  461. 

i-  The  interest  of  the  following  description  of  an  auto-da- 
fe,  by  an  eye-witness,  will  excuse  the  length  of  the  quota- 
tion : — 

"  In  the  morning  of  the  day,  the  prisoners  are  all  brought 
into  a  great  hall,  where  they  have  the  habits  put  on  they 
are  to  wear  in  the  procession,  which  begins  to  come  out  of 
the  Inquisition  about  9  o'clock  in  the  morning.     The  first 


88  GEDDES'   DESCRIPTION 

imprisonment,  he  was  liberated  in  15 5 (\.  But  the 
damp  dungeons,  and  other  cruelties  to  which  he  had 

in  the  procession  are  the  Dominicans,  who  carry  the  standard 
of  the  Inquisition,  wiiich  on  one  side  hath  their  founder 
Dominick's  picture,  and  on  the  other  side  the  cross,  betwixt 
an  olive  tree  and  a  sword,  with  this  motto,  Justitia  et  Mis- 
ericordia  [Justice  and  Mercy].  Next  after  the  Dominicans 
come  the  penitents,  some  with  benitoes  and  some  without, 
according  to  the  nature  of  their  crime.  They  are  all  in 
black  coats  without  sleeves,  and  barefooted,  with  a  wax 
candle  in  their  hands.  Next  come  the  penitents  who  have 
narrowly  escaped  being  burned,  who  over  their  black  coats 
have  flames  painted,  with  their  points  turned  downwards, 
to  signify  their  having  been  saved,  but  so  as  by  fire ;  this 
habit  is  called  by  the  Portuguese  feugo  revolto.  Next  come 
the  negative  and  the  relapsed,  that  are  to  be  burnt,  with 
flames  on  their  habits  pointing  upwards.  Next  come  those 
who  profess  doctrines  contrary  to  the  faith  of  the  Roman 
Church,  and  who,  besides  flames  on  their  habits  pointing 
upward,  have  their  picture,  which  is  drawn  two  or  three 
days  before,  upon  their  breasts,  with  dogs,  serpents,  and 
devils,  all  with  open  mouths,  painted  about  it.  Pregna, 
a  famous  Spanish  Inquisitor,  calls  this  procession,  '  Horren- 
dum  ac  tremendum  spectaculum'  [a  horrid  and  frightful 
sight] ;  and  so  it  is  in  truth,  there  being  something  in  the 
looks  of  all  the  prisoners,  besides  those  that  are  to  be 
burnt,  that  is  ghastly  and  disconsolate  beyond  what  can 
be  imagined;  and  in  the  eyes  and  countenances  of  those 
that  are  to  be  burnt,  there  is  something  that  looks  fierce 
and  eager.  The  prisoners  that  are  to  be  burnt  alive,  besides 
a  familiar  which  all  the  rest  have,  have  a  Jesuit  on  each 
side  of  them,  who  are  continually  preaching  them  to  abjure 
their  heresies ;  but  if  they  offer  to  speak  anything  in  defence 


OF   AN   AUTO-DA-FE.  89 

been  subjected,  had  ruined  his  constitution,  and 
rendered  him  unfit  even  to  attempt  a  renewal  of 

of  the  doctrines  they  are  going  to  suffer  death  for  professing, 
they  are  immediately  gagged,  and  not  suffered  to  speak  a 
word  more.  This  I  saw  done  to  a  prisoner  presently  after 
he  came  out  of  the  gates  of  the  Inquisition,  upon  his  having 
looked  up  to  the  sun,  which  he  had  not  seen  before  in 
several  years,  and  cried  out  in  rapture,  '  How  is  it  possible 
for  people  that  behold  that  glorious  body  to  worship  any 
being  but  Him  that  created  if?'  After  the  prisoners  comes 
a  troop  of  familiars  on  horseback,  and  after  them  the  In- 
quisitors and  other  officers  of  the  court  upon  mules ;  and 
last  of  all  comes  the  Inquisitor-General,  upon  a  white  horse 
led  by  two  men,  with  a  black  hat  and  a  green  hatband,  and 
attended  by  all  the  nobles  that  are  not  employed  as  familiars 
in  the  procession.  In  the  Zimeiro  de  Paco,  which  may  be 
as  far  from  the  Inquisition  as  Whitehall  is  from  Temple  Bar, 
there  is  a  scaffold  erected,  which  may  hold  2000  or  8000 
people ;  at  the  one  end  sit  the  Inquisitors,  and  at  the  other 
end  the  prisoners,  and  in  the  same  order  as  they  walked 
in  the  procession,  those  that  are  to  be  burnt  being  seated 
on  the  highest  benches  behind  the  rest,  which  may  be  ten 
feet  above  the  floor  of  the  scaffold. 

"The  prisoners  are  no  sooner  in  the  hands  of  the  civil 
magistrate,  than  they  are  loaded  with  chains  before  the  eyes 
of  the  Inquisitors,  and  being  carried  first  to  the  secular  gaol, 
are,  within  an  hour  or  two,  brought  from  thence  before  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice,  who,  without  knowing  anything  of 
their  particular  crimes,  or  of  the  evidence  that  was  against 
them,  asks  them  one  by  one  in  what  religion  they  do  intend 
to  die.  If  they  answer  that  they  will  die  in  the  communion 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  they  are  condemned  by  him  to 
be  carried  forthwith  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  there  to 


90  PRIESTLY   CONSOLATION 

his  labour  in  the  cause  of  truth  The  hand  of  death 
was  upon  him.  But  he  had  "fought  a  good  fight," 
and  looked  forward  with  a  well-grounded  confidence 
to  the  "  cro  wn  of  righteousness  "  which  was  laid  up 
as  his   reward.     He  visited  Valladolid,  and  found 


be  strangled,  and  afterwards  burnt  to  ashes.  But  if  they 
say  they  will  die  in  the  Protestant  or  in  any  other  faith  that 
is  contrary  to  the  Roman,  they  are  then  sentenced  to  be 
carried  forthwith  to  the  place  of  execution  and  there  to  be 
burnt  alive.  At  the  place  of  execution,  which  at  Lisbon  is 
the  Ribera,  there  are  so  many  stakes  set  up  as  there  are 
prisoners  to  be  burnt,  with  a  good  quantity  of  dry  furze 
about  them.  The  stakes  of  the  professed,  as  the  Inquisitors 
call  them,  may  be  about  four  yards  high,  and  have  a  small 
board,  whereon  the  prisoner  is  to  be  seated,  within  half 
a  yard  of  the  top.  The  negative  and  relapsed  being  first 
strangled  and  burnt,  the  professed  go  up  a  ladder  betwixt 
the  two  Jesuits  which  have  attended  them  all  day;  and 
when  they  have  come  even  with  the  forementioned  board, 
they  turn  about  to  the  people,  and  the  Jesuits  spend  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  in  exhorting  the  professed  to  be  reconciled 
to  the  Church  of  Rome;  which  if  they  refuse  to  be,  the 
Jesuits  come  down,  and  the  executioner  ascends ;  and  having 
turned  the  professed  off  the  ladder  upon  the  seat,  and 
chained  their  bodies  close  to  the  stake,  he  leaves  them; 
and  the  Jesuits  go  up  to  them  a  second  time  to  renew  their 
exhortation  to  them;  and  at  parting  tell  them  that  they 
leave  them  to  the  devil,  who  is  standing  at  their  elbow 
to  receive  their  souls,  and  carry  them  with  him  into  the 
flames  of  hell-fire,  so  soon  as  they  are  out  of  their  bodies. 
Upon  this  there  is  a  great  shout,  and  as  soon  as  the  Jesuits 
are  off  the  ladder,  the  cry  is,  "  Let  the  dogs'  beards,  let  the 


AT   THE   STAKE.  91 

that  the  good  work  had  been  begun  there  too.  On 
his  return  to  Seville  he  was  seized  with  a  fever, 
which  cut  him  off  in  a  few  days,  but  not  till  the 
cause,  which  his  imprisonment  had  greatly  tended 
to  discourage,  had  been  revived  by  the  return  of  his 
old  friend  Constantino  from  the  Netherlands.     After 

dogs'  beards  be  made;"  wbich  is  done  by  thrusting  flaming 
furze,  fastened  to  a  pole,  against  their  faces.  And  this 
inhumanity  is  commonly  continued  till  their  faces  are  burnt 
to  a  coal,  and  is  always  accompanied  with  such  loud  ac- 
clamations of  joy  as  are  not  to  be  heard  on  any  other 
occasion;  a  bull-feast  or  a  farce  being  dull  entertainments 
to  the  using  a  professed  heretic  thus  inhumanly.  The 
professed  beards  being  thus  made  or  trimmed,  as  they  call 
it  in  jollity,  fire  is  set  to  the  furze,  which  are  at  the  bottom 
of  the  stake,  and  above  which  the  professed  are  chained  so 
high,  that  the  top  of  the  flame  seldom  reaches  higher  than 
the  seat  they  rest  on ;  and  if  there  happens  to  be  a  wind,  to 
which  that  place  is  much  exposed,  it  seldom  reaches  so  high 
as  their  knees;  so  that  though  if  there  be  a  calm,  the 
professed  are  commonly  dead  in  about  half  an  hour  after 
the  furze  is  set  on  fire ;  yet,  if  the  weather  prove  windy, 
they  are  not  dead  after  that  in  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two 
hours,  and  so  are  really  roasted  and  not  burnt  to  death. 
But  though  out  of  hell,  there  cannot  possibly  be  a  more 
lamentable  spectacle  than  this,  being  joined  with  the 
sufferers'  crying  out  (so  long  as  they  are  able  to  speak), 
"  Misericordia por  amour  de  Dios"  [Mercy  for  the  love  of  God], 
yet  it  is  beheld  by  people  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  with 
such  transports  of  joy  and  satisfaction  as  are  not  on  any 
other  occasion  to  be  met  with." — Geddes'  Miscellaneous 
Tracts. 


92  THE    REFORMED    DOCTRINES 

his  death,  Montanus  tells  us  the  bones  of  Egidio 
were  taken  from  the  grave  and  burned,  and  his 
memory  declared  infamous  by  a  sentence  of  the 
Inquisition,  when  they  found  he  had  died  in  the 
Lutheran  faith.  * 

Next  to  Seville,  the  reformed  doctrines  had  made 
more  progress  in  Valladolid  than  in  any  other  city 
in  Spain.  The  circumstances  attending  their  in- 
troduction were  hardly  less  extraordinary  than  those 
which  led  to  their  reception  in  Seville.  A  painfully 
interesting  account  of  the  persecution  to  which  the 
adherents  to  the  truth  were  there  and  elsewhere 
exposed,  is  given  in  Clarke's  Martyrology,  a  book 
which  furnishes,  perhaps,  the  AiUest  historical  account 
to  be  met  with  of  the  persecution  of  Protestants 
throughout  all  the  countries  of  Europe.  From  it 
we  take,  substantially,  the  following  episode  in  the 
history  of  the  reformed  religion  in  Valladolid.  t  In 
1540,  a  young  merchant,  named  Francisco  San- 
Roman,  a  native  of  Burgos,  in  Spain,  was  sent  by 
his  employers  from  Antwerp,  where  he  conducted 
their  affairs,  to  Bremen,  to  transact  some  mercantile 
business.  Some  time  before  this,  the  Lutheran 
doctrines  had   been   introduced   into   Bremen,  and 

*  For  further  particulars  of  his  life  and  persecution,  see 
Cla/rke's  Mwrtyrology,  p.  167. 
t  Page  159. 


IN   VALLADOLID.  93 

the  youDg  merchant,  anxious  to  know  something 
about  opinions  which  had  been  so  much  decried  and 
anathematized  in  Spain,  went  into  one  of  the  re- 
formed churches  to  hear  them  for  himself.  The 
preacher  was  James  Spreng,  formerly  an  Augustan 
monk,  and  one  of  the  first  who  had  embraced  the 
reformed  religion  in  the  Low  Countries.  The  young 
Spaniard  was  so  much  impressed  with  what  he  heard, 
that  he  called  on  the  preacher  after  the  sermon  to 
converse  upon  the  disputed  doctrines  of  the  Romish 
and  Reformed  creeds.  Spreng  was  much  pleased 
with  the  candour  and  earnestness  of  the  inquirer, 
and  introduced  him  to  several  of  his  friends.  Under 
the  influence  of  their  instructions,  he  soon  became 
a  zealous  convert  to  the  truth,  and  longed  to  make 
it  known  in  all  its  fulness  and  purity  to  his  be- 
nighted countrymen  at  home.  Spreng,  alive  to  the 
danger  of  such  an  attempt,  counselled  his  enthusiastic 
convert  not  to  expose  himself  to  peril,  but  his  burn- 
ing zeal  could  not  be  controlled.  He  wrote  to 
Antwerp  to  his  employers,  and  informed  them  of 
his  conversion  to  the  Lutheran  faith,  stating  at  the 
same  time  his  determination  to  return  to  Spain  to 
proclaim  its  doctrines  there.  As  might  be  expected, 
he  was  seized  and  thrown  into  prison  on  his  return 
to  Antwerp,  when  once  more  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  Rome. 


94  FRANCISCO   SAN-ROM AN'S 

After  an  imprisonment  of  eight  months,  he  was 
released  through  the  influence  of  his  friends,  who 
engaged  that  he  should  be  sent  to  Spain,  and 
there  carefully  watched.  At  Louvain  he  met  with 
Francisco  Enzinas,  likewise  a  native  of  Burgos,  and 
whom  we  shall  again  meet  with,  who  advised  him 
to  exercise  a  prudential  caution,  as  any  rash  or 
indiscreet  expression  of  his  opinions  would  efiectually 
deprive  him  of  all  power  to  promote  the  cause  he 
had  at  heart.  This  he  promised  to  observe,  but 
having  gone  to  the  diet  of  Eatisbon,  at  which  the 
Reformers  and  their  opponents  were  then  discussing 
the  doctrines  at  issue  between  them,  San-Roman 
forgot  his  prudent  resolves.  Having  obtained  an 
introduction  to  the  Emperor,  who  was  present  at 
the  diet,  he  implored  him  to  put  an  end  to  the 
Inquisition,  and  encourage  the  introduction  of  the 
reformed  religion  into  Spain.  The  crafty  Charles, 
who  was  then  anxious  to  conciliate  the  Protestants 
of  Germany,  with  a  view  of  securing  their  aid  in 
an  anticipated  war  with  France,  as  well  as  against 
the  Turks  in  Hungary,  gave  apparent  encouragement 
to  San-Roman  to  begin  the  work  of  enlightening  his 
countrymen.  Emboldened  by  this,  he  renewed  his 
application,  but  with  worse  success.  At  the  command 
of  Charles,  he  was  quietly  confined  in  chains,  and 
reserved  for  trial  before  the  Inquisition  of  Valladolid. 


HEROIC    LIFE    AND    DEATH.  95 

After  the  return  of  the  Emperor  to  Spain,  San- 
Eoman  was  delivered  over  to  the  Holy  Office.  At 
his  trial  he  openly  avowed  his  adherence  to  the 
reformed  religion,  and  entire  rejection  of  all  the 
errors  of  Popery.  No  promises  of  pardon  could 
induce  him  to  recant.  A  long  and  painful  imprison- 
ment failed  to  break  down  his  dauntless  spirit  or 
overcome  his  unbending  resolution.  Finding  him 
proof  alike  against  threats  and  promises,  the  In- 
quisitors doomed  him  to  the  stake  as  an  obstinate 
heretic.  At  the  place  of  execution,  the  offer  of 
pardon  was  again  renewed,  but  rejected  on  the 
proposed  conditions  of  recantation.  The  pile  was 
lighted,  and  his  spirit  mounted  up  on  its  chariot 
of  fire  to  the  reward  of  its  faithfulness  above.  This 
occurred  in  1544. 

Instead  of  suppressing  the  new  doctrines,  as  was 
expected,  the  martyrdom  of  San- Roman  imparted  a 
fresh  energy  to  the  infant  cause  in  Valladolid,  and 
helped  to  bind  together  its  adherents  in  a  firmer 
and  closer  alliance  for  the  propagation  of  the  truth. 
Up  to  this  time  they  had  concealed  their  attach- 
ment to  the  reformed  religion,  but  now  the  most 
timid  became  brave,  and  prepared  themselves,  if  need 
be,  to  evince  a  zeal  and  magnanimity  on  its  behalf 
equal  to  that  which  had  been  displayed  by  San- 
Roman.       Hitherto  they   had  been   scattered   over 


96  DOMINGO    DE   ROXAS. 

Valladolid,  in  many  instances  unknown  to  eacli 
other,  but  they  now  formed  themselves  into  a 
church,  and  met  regularly  for  the  purposes  of  mutual 
instruction  and  of  worship,  according  to  the  rites  of 
the  Lutheran  Church. 

Their  first  pastor  was  Domingo  de  Roxas,  son  of 
Don  Juan,  first  Marquis  de  Poza.  He  had  been  edu- 
cated under  Bartolom^  de  Carranza  for  the  church, 
and  at  an  early  age  had  entered  into  the  order  of 
Dominicans.  From  Carranza  he  had  imbibed  reli- 
gious opinions  much  more  liberal  than  those  which 
were  commonly  current  amongst  the  Spanish  clergy  ; 
and,  less  timid  than  his  instructor,  Roxas  was  bolder 
in  his  speculations,  and  less  reserved  in  avowing 
them.  Yet  whilst  openly  advocating  doctrines  closely 
allied  to  those  against  which  the  ban  of  his  church 
had  been  conderaningly  set,  he  cautiously  accom- 
panied his  innovations  with  explanatory  remarks  in- 
tended to  preserve  his  reputed  orthodoxy.  By  such 
a  prudential  course  he  was  enabled  to  instil  a  large 
amount  of  evangelical  truth  into  the  minds  of  his 
hearers,  and  undermine  their  belief  in  most  of  the 
peculiar  heresies  of  Rome.  He  managed  to  circulate 
the  works  of  the  German  Reformers,  and  published 
several  of  his  own,  better  fitted  as  initiatives  for 
the  prejudiced  and  ignorant  minds  of  his  country- 
men.    In  this  way  he  gradually  increased  the  num- 


DR.    AUGUSTIN    CAZALLA.  97 

ler  of  adherents  to  the  reformed  faith,  and  largely 
added  to  the  church  in  Valladolid. 

About  the  year  1555,  Roxas  obtained  a  valuable 
coadjutor  in  Doctor  Augustin  Cazalla.  Less  coura- 
geous in  the  avowal  of  his  opinions,  this  learned 
man  surpassed  Koxas  in  talents  and  reputation. 
Educated,  likewise,  by  Carranza,  he  had  been  ad- 
mitted a  canon  of  Salamanca  about  the  year  1535, 
and  soon  gave  promise  of  unusual  abilities  as  a 
preacher. 

In  1545  he  was  chosen  preacher  and  almoner  to 
the  Emperor,  whom  he  accompanied  in  the  following 
year  to  Germany.  Whilst  opposing  Lutheranism  in 
that  country,  he  became  himself  a  convert  to  its 
doctrines,  but  for  prudential  reasons  concealed  his 
change  of  opinions.  His  case  was  not  a  solitary 
one ;  many  of  the  most  learned  divines  of  the 
Spanish  Church  became  similarly  converted  to  the 
new  doctrines  which  they  had  left  Spain  to  confute 
in  Germany.  Indeed,  to  this  circumstance  the  tem- 
porary success  of  the  reformed  religion  in  Spain  was 
in  no  small  degree  owing.  To  this  Illescas  bears 
witness  in  his  Pontifical  History,*  w^iere  he  says  : — 
"Formerly,  such  Lutheran  heretics  as  were  appre- 
hended and  committed  to  the  flames,  were  almost  all 
either  strangers, — Germans,  Flemings,  and  English, 
*  Vol.  ii.  f.  337,  b. 
H 


98  ADVOCATES    OF    ROMANISM 

or,  if  Spaniards,  they  were  mean  people  and  of  a 
bad  race  ;  but  in  these  late  years  we  have  seen  the 
prisons,  scaffolds,  and  stakes,  crowded  with  persons 
of  noble  birth,  and,  what  is  still  more  to  be  de- 
plored, with  persons  illustrious,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  world,  for  letters  and  piety.  The  cause  of  this 
and  many  other  evils  was  the  affection  which  our 
Catholic  princes  cherished  for  Germany,  England, 
and  other  countries  without  the  pale  of  the  Church, 
which  induced  them  to  send  learned  men  and 
preachers  from  Spain  to  these  places,  in  the  hope 
that  by  their  sermons  they  would  be  brought  back 
to  the  path  of  truth.  But,  unhappily,  this  measure 
was  productive  of  little  good  fruit ;  for  of  those  who 
went  abroad  to  give  light  to  others,  some  returned 
home  blind  themselves,  and,  being  deceived,  or  puffed 
up  with  ambition  or  a  desire  to  be  thought  vastly 
learned  and  improved  by  their  residence  in  foreign 
countries,  they  followed  the  example  of  the  heretics 
with  whom  they  had  disputed."  This  fact  is  further 
confirmed  in  reference  to  the  Spanish  clergy  who 
accompanied  Philip  II.  to  England  on  the  occasion 
of  his  marriage  with  Mary.  Bishop  Pilkington 
says  : — "  It  is  much  more  notable  that  we  have  seen 
come  to  pass  in  our  days,  that  the  Spaniards  sent 
into  the  realm  [of  England]  on  purpose  to  suppress 
the  Gospel,   as  soon  as  they  were  returned   home, 


CONVERTED    TO    PROTESTANTISM.  99 

replenished  many  parts  of  their  country  with  the 
same  truth  of  religion  to  which  before  they  were 
utter  enemies."  *  Such  were  the  cases  in  Germany 
of  Constantino  Ponce  de  la  Fuente,  already  men- 
tioned, and  Cazalla,  of  whom  we  are  now  treating. 

In  1552  he  returned  to  Spain,  and  settled  in 
Salamanca  for  three  years,  during  which  he  carried 
on  a  correspondence  with  the  Protestants  of  Seville. 
The  caution  with  which  he  acted,  however,  preserved 
his  orthodoxy  from  suspicion,  and  enabled  him  to 
continue  in  his  office  of  royal  chaplain.  It  was  in 
the  discharge  of  its  duties  that  he  visited  Valladolid, 
and  became  acquainted  with  Roxas  and  his  fellow 
Protestants  there.  He  was  induced  to  remove  from 
Salamanca  and  settle  in  Valladolid,  where  he  soon 
became  a  firm  and  valuable  adherent  to  the  reformed 
Church.  His  position  gave  him  many  and  peculiar 
opportunities  of  intercourse  with  those  who  could 
not  otherwise  have  been  readily  reached  by  the 
Lutheran  doctrines,  and  on  such  he  very  judiciously 
brought  his  influence  to  bear  in  giving  them  correct 
notions  of  divine  truth.  But  for  a  time,  as  we  shall 
see,  he  cautiously  concealed  his  sentiments  in  the 
discharge  of  his  public  duties,  wisely  avoiding  what- 
ever would  have  subjected  him  to  suspicion.  By 
proceeding   thus   wisely   he   was   enabled  to  be  of 

*  See  Strype's  Memorials  of  Cranmer,  p.  246. 


100    LUTHERAN   DOCTRINES    FAIRLY   INTRODUCED. 

essential  benefit  to  the  reformed  faith,  and  save  him- 
self from  the  fate  which  would  speedily  have  fallen 
upon  so  distinguished  an  apostate  from  the  Romish 
Church. 

By  means  of  the  individuals  now  mentioned,  and 
of  some  of  whom  we  shall  make  mention  in  the 
following  chapter,  the  introduction  of  the  Lutheran 
doctrines  was  now  fairly,  though  secretly,  accom- 
plished, and  they  were  left  to  work  their  silent  way 
in  the  minds  of  the  people.  How  they  did  so,  and 
how  they  were  suppressed,  would  require  a  volume 
larger  than  ours  to  describe,  but  we  shall  in  the 
succeeding  pages  take  a  sufficiently  extensive  glance 
at  their  brief  but  interesting  history  to  give  the 
reader  a  tolerably  correct  idea  of  the  life-struggles  of 
Protestantism  in  Spain. 


SPANISH   PKOTESTANTS   ABROAD.  101 


€lmttt  |ift|. 


CIRCUMSTANCES  WHICH   FAVOURED  THE   REFOEMATION 
IN  SPAIN. 

Whilst  the  friends  of  Protestantism  were  thus  suc- 
cessfully labouring  in  Spain,  they  were  not  without 
valuable  aid  from  Germany  and  the  Low  Countries. 
Many  of  their  countrymen,  whom  commerce  or  other 
business  had  brought  to  the  home  of  the  Eeforma- 
tion,  had  embraced  its  doctrines,  and  were  labouring 
hard  to  aid  their  reception  and  establishment  in 
their  fatherland.  We  shall  occupy  this  chapter  with 
a  cursory  account  of  the  most  active  of  these  Spanish 
Protestants  abroad,  and  of  the  means  which  they 
employed  to  promote  the  spread  of  the  reformed 
doctrine  at  home. 

In  the  same  year  (1540)  in  which  San-Roman  left 
Antwerp  for  Bremen,  three  of  his  fellow-townsmen 


102  THE   THREE    BROTHERS    ENZINAS. 

left  Burgos  to  study  at  the  University  of  Louvain 
in  the  Netherlands.  Louvain  was  at  that  time  a 
favourite  place  of  education  for  Spanish  youths  ; 
elegant  literature  and  freedom  of  religious  opinion 
had  been  cultivated  in  it  to  a  greater  extent  than  in 
almost  any  other  of  the  continental  universities,  not 
excepting  even  the  famed  University  of  Paris.  The 
young  men  whom  we  are  now  to  follow  thither  were 
brothers,  and  their  family  name  was  Enzinas ;  their 
Christian  names  being  respectively,  Jayme,  Fran- 
cisco, and  Juan.  Whilst  at  Louvain  they  became 
intimate  with  the  celebrated  Cassander,"'  from  whom 
they  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Lutheran  doc- 
trines. They  were  not  satisfied,  however,  in  resting 
in  the  compromises  of  this  learned  divine,  but  en- 
tirely renounced  the  authority  and  creed  of  the 
Eomish  Church,  and  gave  themselves  up  to  the  faith 
of  the  Reformation.  In  all  three  the  change  was 
complete. 

Having  gone  through  the  usual  period  of  study  at 
Louvain,  the  eldest  and  youngest  of  the  three  bro- 
thers left  j  Jayme  for  Paris,  and  Juan  for  Marburg 
in  Germany,  where  he  became  a  professor  of  medi- 

*  George  Cassander  was  a  native  of  Cassand,  near  Bruges. 
He  was  a  modest  and  ingenuous  Roman  Catholic  divine, 
who  vainly  endeavoured  to  reconcile  the  popish  and  re- 
formed churches,  and  gained  the  ill-will  of  both.  He  died 
in  1566. 


JAYME    IN    PARIS.  103 

cine  in  the  university,  and  wrote  several  eminent 
treatises  on  medicine  and  astronomy,  which  gained 
him  a  very  honourable  reputation.  In  Paris  Jayme 
became  confirmed  in  his  attachment  to  the  reformed 
faith,  and  laboured  successfully  in  commending  its 
doctrines  to  several  of  his  countrymen  who  were 
then  studying  at  the  university  in  that  city.  The 
persecutions,*  however^  to  which  the  Protestants 
were  even  then  subjected,  filled  him  with  the  deepest 
horror,  and  induced  him  to  leave  a  place  where 
bigotry  and  barbarism  prevailed,  and  return  to  rejoin 
his  brother  Francisco  at  Louvain.  Eemaining  there 
for  a  time,  he  occupied  himself  busily  in  compiling 
a  catechism  of  the  reformed  doctrines,  which  he  had 
drawn  up  in  Spanish  for  the  use  of  his  countrymen, 
and  which  he  subsequently  printed  at  Antwerp. 
Whilst  there  he  received  orders  from  his  father,  de- 
siring him  to  go  to  Rome,  for  the  purpose  of  study- 
ing theology,  as  he  was  intended  for  the  Church. 
Much  against  his  inclination,  and  contrary  to  the 
advice  of  his  Protestant  friends,  he  obeyed  the 
behest  of  his  father,  and  left  the  Netherlands,  as  the 
result  proved,  never  to  visit  them  again.     On  reach- 

*  Before  being  burned,  condemned  heretics  were  subjected 
to  the  most  cruel  tortures.  Their  tongues  were  torn  out  by 
the  executioner,  with  pincers,  and  the  victims  beaten  with 
them  in  the  face. — See  Histolre  des  Martyrs. 


104  MARTYRDOM    OF   JAYME    ENZINAS. 

iiig  Italy  he   soon  found  how  dangerous    was    his 
position. 

The  jealous  watchfulness  of  the  priests  had 
been  keenly  excited  by  their  recent  discovery 
that  the  Lutheran  doctrines  had  penetrated  even  to 
the  eternal  city,  and  prevailed  extensively  throughout 
many  parts  of  Italy.  Seeing  that  no  good  end 
could  be  answered  by  the  avowal  of  his  sentiments, 
but  on  the  contrary  much  useless  danger  incurred, 
Jayme  Enzinas  managed  to  save  himself  from  sus- 
picion for  a  few  years  in  Eome,  at  the  end  of  which 
he  resolved,  though  in  opposition  to  the  wishes  of 
his  father,  to  return  to  Germany.  But  he  was  never 
to  look  on  it  again.  On  the  eve  of  setting  out 
from  Rome  he  was  denounced  to  the  Inquisition  by 
one  of  his  own  countrymen,  whom  he  had  laboured 
hard,  and  as  he  thought  successfully,  to  win  over  to 
the  reformed  faith.  His  process  was  short.  When 
brought  to  trial,  at  which  most  of  the  chief  bishops 
attended,  he  openly  avowed  his  attachment  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  Reformation,  and  challenged  his 
judges  to  refute  them.  He  was  at  once  condemned 
to  the  stake,  though  a  subsequent  offer  of  pardon, 
on  conditions  of  recantation  and  penance,  was  made, 
but  rejected  on  such  terms.  The  sentence  was 
carried  into  execution,  and  he  died  a  martyr  to 
the  truth  in  1546.     Thus  perished  Jayme  Enzinas, 


JUAN   DIAZ.  105 

the  first  Spanish  martyr  in  Italy  of  whom  we  have 
any  account. 

About  the  time  of  his  death,  a  still  more  fearful 
tragedy  occurred  in  Germany,  of  which  one  of  his 
converts  there  was  the  victim.  This  man  was  Juan 
Diaz,  likewise  a  Spaniard,  who  had  studied  in  the 
University  of  Paris,  and  whilst  there  had  become 
the  intimate  friend  of  Enzinas,  whose  opinions  he 
soon  embraced.  After  the  departure  of  the  latter 
from  Paris,  Diaz  left  it  too,  for  a  similar  reason, 
in  company  with  two  Protestants,  named  John 
Crespin  and  Matthew  Bude,  and  settled  for  a  time 
at  Geneva.  From  thence  he  removed,  in  1546, 
to  Strasburg,  where  he  cultivated  the  acquaintance 
of  Martin  Bucer,  with  whom  he  subsequently  went 
as  a  deputation  in  defence  of  the  reformed  doctrines 
to  a  conference  at  Ratisbon.  Whilst  there,  he  met 
with  his  countryman  Pedro  Malvenda,  who  was  to 
defend  the  doctrines  of  the  Bomish  Church.  En- 
raged at  finding  Diaz  a  convert  to  the  Lutheran 
faith,  Malvenda,  after  endeavouring  in  vain  to  re- 
claim him,  consulted  with,  the  chaplain  of  the 
Emperor,  who  was  then  at  Batisbon.  The  result 
of  the  consultation  was,  that  a  messenger  was  dis- 
patched to  Bome  to  acquaint  Dr.  Alfonso  Diaz  with 
his  brother's  apostasy.  The  bigoted  advocate  in  the 
sacred   Bota   no    sooner   received   this   galling    in- 


106  A   SNARE    FOR   A    BROTHER'S   LIFE. 

formation,  than  he  set  out  for  Germany,  accom- 
panied by  a  ready  instrument  of  his  pleasure,  and 
resolved  to  wipe  off  or  avenge  the  stain  which  had 
been  cast  on  the  honour  of  his  family,  by  such  a 
defection  from  the  faith  of  Kome.  On  reaching 
Germany,  Alfonso  followed  his  brother  to  Neuburg, 
a  town  in  Bavaria,  whither  he  had  gone  by  the 
advice  of  Bucer  and  his  other  Protestant  friends. 
Finding  him  irreclaimable,  Alfonso  at  length  pre- 
tended that  his  brother's  arguments  in  favour  of 
the  new  doctrines  had  wrought  a  change  in  his  own 
sentiments.  The  bait  took.  His  delighted  brother 
was  thrown  off  his  guard,  and  agreed  to  accompany 
Alfonso  back  to  Italy,  for  the  purpose  of  propagating 
them  in  that  country,  if  his  friends  on  being  con- 
sulted should  acquiesce  in  the  plan.  They  at  once 
saw  through  the  snare,  and  strongly  urged  Juan 
to  remain  where  he  was.  Foiled  in  this,  Alfonso 
endeavoured  to  persuade  his  brother  to  accompany 
him  as  far  as  Augsburg,  which  he  would  have  done 
but  for  the  timely  arrival  of  Bucer  and  two  other 
friends.  The  cunning  .doctor  concealed  his  chagrin, 
and  parted  from  his  brother  with  many  expressions 
of  affectionate  regret,  and  thanks  for  the  spiritual 
benefit  which  he  professed  to  have  received  from  his 
instructions.  He  went  as  far  as  Augsburg,  but 
returned  secretly  next   day,  followed   by  the   man 


DIAZ   MURDERED    BY   HIS    BROTHER.  107 

who  had  accompanied  him,  and  passed  the  night 
in  a  small  village  near  Neuburg.  Before  sunrise 
next  morning,  they  went  to  the  house  in  which 
his  brother  lodged,  and  knocked  loudly  at  the  gate. 
The  man  entered,  leaving  his  master  outside,  and 
requested  to  see  Juan,  with  a  letter  from  his  brother. 
He  was  shown  into  his  bedroom.  Juan  had  not 
risen,  but  hearing  of  a  letter  from  his  brother,  he 
leaped  out  of  bed  and  went  to  the  window  to  read 
it,  when  the  assassin,  creeping  behind  his  unsuspect- 
ing victim,  clove  his  scull  with  an  axe  which  he  had 
hid  for  the  purpose  beneath  his  cloak.  Leaving  the 
murdered  man  weltering  in  his  blood,  he  rejoined 
the  inhuman  brother,  who  stood  below  ready  to  give 
assistance  if  needed.  The  murder  was  soon  dis- 
covered, and  its  perpetrators  hotly  pursued.  They 
were  overtaken  in  Inspruck,  and  lodged  in  prison. 
As  the  crime  had  been  committed  in  Bavaria,  Otho 
Henry,  Count-palatine  of  the  Bhine  and  Duke  of 
Bavaria,  speedily  arranged  for  the  trial.  The  rent 
and  bloody  night-cap  of  the  murdered  man,  together 
with  the  axe  and  letter  of  Alfonso,  were  sent  from 
Neuburg;  but,  through  the  influence  of  the  Cardinals 
of  Trent  and  Augsburg,  the  trial  was  suspended 
from  time  to  time,  till  at  length  the  Emperor  forbad 
the  judges  to  proceed  with  the  process,  and  ordered 
the  matter  to  be  reserved  for  the  judgment  of  his 


108       CRIME  SANCTIONED  BY  KOME. 

brother  Ferdinand,  king  of  the  Romans,  as  nominal 
sovereign  of  the  accused.  At  the  subsequent  diet 
of  Ratisbon,  the  Protestant  princes  in  vain  demanded 
of  Charles,  and  afterward  of  Ferdinand,  that  justice 
should  be  done.  Evasions  of  various  kinds  were 
employed,  and,  in  the  long  run,  the  murderers 
escaped  untried  and  unpunished,  through  the  influ- 
ence of  Rome,  to  which  place  they  were  welcomed  back 
and  honoured,  as  having  performed  a  meritorious 
deed.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  Popery,  and  such  it 
remains  unaltered  still.  In  all  ages  of  its  history, 
the  service  of  the  church  has  led  its  votaries  to 
outrage  the  tenderest  affections  of  the  human  breast, 
and  perpetrate  deeds  at  which  humanity  shudders. 
The  blind  fanatical  zeal  which  it  inculcates  and 
fosters,  stops  short  at  no  enormity,  however  black, 
which  will  promote  its  interests,  while  the  church 
approves  and  sanctifies  the  crime  ! 

Such,  substantially,  is  the  account  given  of  this 
tragedy  by  Claude  Senarcle,  who  was  a  personal 
friend  of  Juan  Diaz,  had  accompanied  him  since 
he  left  Paris,  and  slept  in  the  same  bed  with  him 
the  night  before  his  death.  Its  accuracy  has  not 
been  called  in  question  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  Roman 
Catholics  applauded  the  deed,  and,  as  we  remarked 
already,  heaped  honour  on  its  perpetrators.  It  is, 
then,  a  true  exemplification  of  the  spirit  of  Popery ; 


FRANCISCO   ENZINAS.  109 

only  one,  however,  and  not  the  greatest  of  her  many 
atrocities,  performed  under  the  outraged  name  of 
religion. 

As  we  have  before  observed,  Francisco  Enzinas, 
the  second  of  the  three,  had  continued  to  reside  at 
Louvain,  after  his  brothers  had  gone  to  Paris  and 
Marburg.  His  situation,  however,  was  far  from 
being  either  pleasant  or  safe.  He  was  surrounded  on 
all  hands  by  those  who  would  gladly  have  seized  on 
anything  that  savoured  of  a  leaning  to  the  reformed 
doctrines,  and  consigned  the  ofiender  to  the  dun- 
geons of  the  Inquisition,  and  thence  to  the  stake. 
But  he  was  in  some  degree  compensated  for  the 
irksomeness  of  his  position,  by  an  intimate  corre- 
spondence with  Albert  Hardenberg,  a  friend  of 
Melanchthon,  and  preacher  to  the  Cistercian  monas- 
tery of  Adwert.  By  him  he  was  introduced  to 
John  ^  Lasco,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
reformed  clergy  of  Poland.  In  a  letter  to  the  latter, 
Enzinas  says,  in  reference  to  the  course  he  intended 
to  pursue  : — "  All  the  world  will,  I  know,  be  in 
arms  against  me  on  account  of  the  resolution  which, 
in  opposition  to  the  advice  of  some  worthy  men,  I 
have  now  formed,  to  devote  myself  to  literary  pur- 
suits. *  But  I  will  not  suffer  myself,  from  respect 
to    the   favour  of  men,   to  hold  the  truth   in   un- 

*  He  had  been  intended  by  his  parents  for  the  army. 


110  ENZINAS'   TRANSLATION 

righteousness,  or  to  treat  unbecomingly  those  gifts 
which  God  in  His  free  mercy  has  been  pleased  to 
confer  on  me,  unworthy  as  T  am.  On  the  contrary, 
it  shall  be  my  endeavour,  according  to  my  ability, 
to  propagate  divine  truth.  That  I  may  do  this  by 
the  grace  of  God,  I  find  that  it  will  be  necessary  for 
me,  in  the  first  place,  to  fly  from  the  Babylonian 
captivity,  and  to  retire  to  a  place  in  which  I  shall 
be  at  liberty  to  cultivate  undefiled  religion  and  true 
Christianity,  along  with  liberal  studies.  Tt  is,  there- 
fore, my  purpose  to  repair  to  Wittenberg,  because 
that  city  contains  an  abundance  of  learned  professors 
in  all  the  sciences ;  and  I  entertain  so  high  an  es- 
teem for  the  learning,  judgment,  and  dexterity  in 
teaching,  possessed  by  Philip  Melanchthon  in  par- 
ticular, that  I  would  go  to  the  end  of  the  world  to 
enjoy  the  company  and  instruction  of  such  men. 
I,  therefore,  earnestly  beg  that,  as  your  name  has 
great  weight,  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  favour 
me  with  letters  of  introduction  to  Luther,  Philip 
[Melanchthon],  and  other  learned  men  in  that  city." 
After  going,  in  accordance  with  this  resolution, 
to  Wittenberg,  he  remained  there  but  a  short  time, 
being  encouraged  by  the  Eeformers  to  return  to  the 
Low  Countries,  and  engage  in  a  work  which  had 
long  occupied  his  thoughts — the  translation  of  the 
New  Testament  into    Spanish,  for  the   use  of  his 


OP   THE    NEW   TESTAMENT.  1  ]  1 

countrymen  at  home.  Like  many  of  these  at  the 
time,  and  since,  he  seems  to  have  been  ignorant  that 
such  a  translation  had  ever  been  made  before.  As 
early,  however,  as  the  12th  or  1 3th  century,  various 
parts  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  had  been 
translated  into  the  8panish  language ;  for  we  find 
Juan  I.  of  Aragon,  as  early  as  1233,  publicly  pro- 
hibiting the  use  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular, 
and  ordering  all  copies  of  them  to  be  given  up  to 
the  clergy  to  be  burned,  on  pain  of  their  holders 
being  suspected  of  heresy.  Some  years  later,  how- 
ever, Alfonso  X.  of  Castile  caused  a  translation  to 
be  made  into  the  Castilian  dialect  for  the  use  of  his 
subjects.  Other  versions  were  subsequently  made 
by  various  translators,  but  they  were  all  suppressed 
and  gradually  destroyed  by  the  Inquisition ;  so  that 
for  more  than  half  a  century  before  the  time  of 
Enzinas,  Spain  was  entirely  destitute  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  the  vulgar  tongue.  The  translation  which 
he  now  undertook  was  that  of  the  New  Testament 
into  the  dialect  of  Castile.  On  its  completion,  he 
submitted  the  work  to  the  Divines  of  Louvain. 
They  refrained  from  either  censuring  or  approving 
it,  on  the  grounds  of  their  ignorance  of  Spanish, 
but  expressed  their  general  opinion  that  such  a  work 
would  tend  to  promote  heresy,  by  introducing  the 
vulgar  and  unlearned  to  a  knowledge  of  doctrines 


112       THE   TESTAMENT   DECLARED   DANGEROUS. 

which  it  was  the  especial  province  of  the  church 
to  explain.  For  such  discouragement,  however,  he 
was  prepared,  and  he  did  not,  therefore,  allow  it 
to  prevent  the  carrying  out  of  his  design.  It  was 
printed  in  1543  at  Antwerp,  under  the  title  of  "The 
New  Testament,  that  is,  the  New  Covenant  of  our 
only  Redeemer  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  translated 
from  Greek  into  the  Castilian  language."''  The 
short-sighted  censors  to  whom  it  had  to  be  sub- 
mitted, objected  to  the  introduction  of  "the  new 
covenant,"  as  savouring  of  Lutheranism,  and  accord- 
ingly insisted  on  the  title-page  being  cancelled,  and 
a  new  one,  free  from  the  obnoxious  sentence,  being 
substituted  in  its  stead.  The  next  phrase  to  which 
objection  was  taken  were  the  words  "our  only 
Redeemer."  The  particle  was  expunged,  and  the 
work  of  pruning  went  on.  But  finding  that  the 
objections  of  his  critics  would  amount  to  a  virtual 
veto  upon  his  book,  Enzinas,  on  his  own  re- 
sponsibility,  proceeded  with  its  publication. 

Soon  after  this,  the  Emperor  visited  Brussels,  and 
was  presented  with  a  copy  of  the  work  by  the 
translator,  who  requested  permission  to  circulate 
it  in  Spain.  This  was  granted,  on  condition  that 
it  was  found,  on  further  examination,  to  contain 
nothing  contrary  to  the  faith.  The  royal  chaplain, 
to  whom  it  was  submitted  for  examination,  speedily 


IMPBISONMENT   AND    ESCAPE   OP   ENZINAS.       113 

condemned  it  as  dangerous  in  the  highest  degree, 
and  upbraided  Enzinas  as  a  double-dyed  heretic. 

He  was  at  once  denounced  to  the  Inquisition, 
and  charged  with  the  additional  crimes  of  having 
translated  one  of  Luther's  works,  and  of  having 
lived  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  "  arch-heretic " 
Melanchthon.  As  no  charge  of  heresy,  however, 
could  be  substantiated,  his  escape,  after  an  imprison- 
ment of  fifteen  months,  was  connived  at,  and  he 
fled  to  Wittenberg  to  his  old  friends.  After  his 
escape,  he  was  formally  condemned  by  default,  and 
sentence  registered  against  him,  as  we  learn  from 
a  letter  of  Melanchthon  to  a  friend.*  After  men- 
tioning this,  the  Reformer  goes  on  to  say : — "  He 
sets  out  for  your  town  to  ascertain  the  fact,  and 
to  learn  if  there  are  any  letters  for  him  from  that 
quarter.  I  have  given  him  a  letter  to  you,  both 
that  I  may  acquaint  you  of  the  cause  of  his  journey, 
and  because  I  know  you  feel  for  the  calamities  of 
all  good  men.  He  evinces  great  fortitude,  though 
he  evidently  sees  that  his  return  to  his  parents  and 
native  country  is  now  cut  off.  The  thought  of  the 
anguish  which  this  will  give  to  his  parents  distresses 
him.  These  Inquisitors  are  as  cruel  to  us  as  the 
thirty  tyrants  were  of  old  to  their  fellow-citizens  at 
Athens  ;  but  God  will  preserve  the  remnant  of  his 

*  Melanchihonis  Epis.,  col.  858 ;  cited  by  Dr.  Mc  Crie. 

I 


114  VARIOUS   TRANSLATIONS 

church,  and  provide  an  asylum  for  the  truth  some- 
where." 

In  1548  Francisco  came  to  England,  where  he 
was  warmly  received  by  Edward  VI.  and  Cranmer ; 
"  but  returning  soon  after  to  the  Continent,  he  resided 
sometimes  at  Strasburg  and  sometimes  at  Basle, 
where  he  spent  his  time  in  literary  pursuits,  and 
in  the  society  of  the  wise  and  good." 

Besides  Enzinas'  translation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, other  versions  of  various  parts  of  the  Old 
were  made  shortly  after  his  work  appeared.  They 
were  printed  in  the  Low  Countries,  and  smuggled 
into  Spain.  Amongst  these  detached  portions  of 
the  Bible,  were  the  seven  penitential  Psalms,  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah, 
and  the  book  of  Job.  In  addition  to  these,  the 
Jews  appear  to  have  had  early  translations  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  the  Spanish  language.  Two 
editions  were  printed  at  Venice,  soon  after  the 
appearance  of  Enzinas'  New  Testament.  This  latter, 
however,  was  one  of  the  chief  aids  to  the  spread 
of  the  reformed  religion  in  the  Peninsula. 

But,  besides  Enzinas,  there  were  other  Spanish 
Protestants  abroad,  who  did  much  to  disseminate  a 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  Lutheran  doc- 
trines amongst  their  countrymen  at  home.  Among 
these  truly  patriotic  men  were  Juan  Perez,  Cassiodoro 


OF   THE    SCRIPTURES.  11^ 

de  Eeyna,  and  Cypriano  de  Valera.  The  first  of 
these  was  a  native  of  Montilla,  in  Andalusia.  In 
Id 27  he  was  sent  to  Eome  as  envoy  by  the  Emperor, 
and  succeeded  in  procuring  a  suspension  of  the  de- 
cree by  which  the  writings  of  Erasmus  had  been 
condemned  by  the  Spanish  divines.  On  his  return, 
he  became  head  of  the  College  of  Doctrine  at  Seville, 
where  he  first  became  acquainted  with  Egidio  and 
the  other  Protestants  of  that  city.  His  orthodoxy 
soon  became  suspected,  and  he  was  obliged  to  leave 
Spain  to  escape  the  fangs  of  the  Inquisition.  Whilst 
abroad,  in  Geneva  and  various  parts  of  Germany, 
he  translated  the  New  Testament  and  the  Psalms 
into  Spanish,  in  addition  to  which  he  drew  up  a 
catechism  and  summary  of  Christian  doctrine  in  the 
same  language,  all  of  which  appeared  about  the  year 
1557,  and  were  printed  at  Venice.  He  died  at  Paris 
not  long  after,  and  bequeathed  the  whole  of  his  for- 
tune to  the  printing  of  the  Bible,  for  the  use  of  his 
countrymen,  in  their  own  language.  After  his  death, 
Cassiodoro  de  Keyna  finished  the  translation  of  the 
whole  Bible,  and  had  it  printed  at  Basle  in  1569. 
This  version  was  revised  and  corrected  by  Cypriano 
de  Valera,  who  published  an  edition  of  the  New 
Testament  in  London  in  15D6,  and  one  of  the  whole 
at  Amsterdam  in  1602.  Besides  these,  the  New 
Testament  was  translated  into  Basque  by  Juan  Liz- 


116  EFFORTS   OF   THE    INQUISITION 

zarago,  in  1571.  Though  these  three  versions  last 
mentioned  did  not  appear  till  after  the  suppression 
of  the  Eeformation  in  Spain,  they  were  of  much 
service  to  many  who  still  clung  privately  to  its  doc- 
trines, and  a  re- issue  of  De  Val era's  edition  at  a 
recent  period  led  the  Spanish  clergy  to  make  a 
translation  of  their  own — a  step  which  they  would 
have  been  the  last  to  take,  if  not  forced  to  it  by 
the  extensive  circulation  of  these  more  faithful  ver- 
sions. 

Enzinas'  version  of  the  New  Testament  had  been 
suppressed  in  the  Netherlands  soon  after  its  publica- 
tion, but  a  large  number  of  copies  of  it  had  been 
already  conveyed  into  Spain,  and  extensively  cir- 
culated. But  for  the  help  given  to  the  Eeformation  in 
Spain  by  the  translations  of  the  Scriptures  by  Perez 
and  Enzinas,  its  doctrines  would  have  made  but 
little  progress  in  that  country  merely  by  the  efforts 
of  individual  teachers.  Introduced  at  once  to  the 
fountain-head  of  religious  knowledge,  those  amongst 
whom  the  Bible  was  circulated  soon  discovered  the 
glaring  contradiction  of  the  Eomish  tenets  to  the 
pure  and  simple  doctrines  of  Scripture,  and  were 
thus  prepared  to  profit  by  the  instructions  of  De  la 
Fuente  and  his  fellow-labourers  in  the  cause  of 
truth. 

If  the  Inquisition  had  had  to  contend  only  with 


TO    SUPPRESS   THE   SCRIPTURES.  Il7 

these  single  heralds  of  the  reformed  faith,  its  ter- 
rible machinery  would  have  speedily  crushed  every 
effort  they  could  have  put  forth ;  but,  secret  and 
wide-spread  as  was  the  agency  it  employed,  the 
silent  but  powerful  pioneers  of  Protestantism,  sent 
forth  by  these  translators  to  do  their  enlightening 
work  amongst  the  benighted  population,  set  at 
nought  its  all  but  omnipotent  powers  of  detection, 
and  prepared  the  way  for  the  teachers  of  the  Lutheran 
faith.  The  Inquisitors  were  more  than  suspicious 
that  such  books  were  in  circulation  and  extensively 
read,  but  were  unable  to  crush  an  agency  so  much 
dreaded.  In  vain  did  they  enjoin  upon  all  con- 
fessors to  threaten  their  penitents  with  the  most 
terrible  thunders  of  the  Church,  if  they  read  thje 
Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  or  knew  of  its  being 
read,  or  even  possessed,  without  giving  information 
to  the  clergy.  To  no  purpose  did  they  issue  pro- 
clamations, declaring  that  such  as  did  so  would,  if 
discovered,  be  held  suspected  of  heresy,  and  treated 
accordingly.  The  Bible  was  read,  and  the  Reforma- 
tion prospered,  in  spite  of  all  their  efforts  to  prevent 
it.  Those  who,  like  De  la  Fuente,  conducted  the 
Protestant  movement,  knew  well  the  dangers  to 
which  they  were  exposed,  and  the  kind  of  enemies 
with  whom  they  had  to  contend,  and,  accordingly, 
proceeded  with  all   possible  caution.     In   this  way 


118  THIRST    FOR   RELIGIOUS   KNOWLEDGE. 

they  baffled  the  efforts  of  their  opponents^  and  con- 
tinued to  labour  successfully  in  spreading  amongst 
the  people  that  knowledge  which  makes  wise  unto 
salvation.  In  Spain  it  would  not  have  been  possible 
to  print  translations  of  the  Scriptures,  even  if  they 
could  have  been  safely  made ;  but  abroad,  in  coun- 
tries where  the  Reformation  was  befriended  by  the 
public  authorities,  as  in  many  of  the  German  States, 
it  was  easily  accomplished.  This  once  done,  the  im- 
portation of  these,  and  of  other  books  written  by  the 
Reformers,  was  the  chief  difficulty  to  be  overcome. , 
But,  animated  by  a  zeal  which  no  superable  obsta- 
cles could  resist,  the  Spanish  Protestants  abroad 
managed  to  have  them  largely  circulated  amongst 
their  countrymen  at  home,  and  thus  promoted  the 
great  cause  of  truth  more  effectually  than  they  could 
have  done  had  they  been  present  to  aid  it  by  their 
individual  efforts.  The  thirst  for  religious  know- 
ledge which  the  introduction  of  the  Bible  produced 
was  irresistible.  Valladolid  and  Seville,  the  two 
most  important  cities  in  the  kingdom,  were  the 
great  fountains  whence  flowed  to  the  country,  through 
the  surrounding  towns  and  villages,  as  so  many 
branch  streams,  the  instruction  sought  for.  The 
churches  in  them  were  centres,  from  which  all  action 
primarily  emanated,  and  to  which  the  scattered 
friends  of  the  reformed  faith  looked  for  direction 


HOW   SUPPLIED.  119 

and  support.  To  them  were  the  books,  imported 
from  Germany  and  the  Low  Countries,  consigned, 
and  by  them  were  they  circulated  far  and  wide 
through  the  country.  At  all  the  seaports  of  the 
kingdom,  and  at  the  land-passes  of  the  Pyrenees, 
officers  were  placed,  to  examine  every  traveller  and 
every  package  entering  the  Peninsula ;  but  to  little 
purpose.  Notwithstanding  their  utmost  vigilance, 
the  prohibited  works  were  introduced,  and  thus  the 
work  of  the  Reformation  went  silently  but  steadily 
on. 


120  CONST ANTINE  PONCE. 


€\n^ttt  Bk% 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  REFORMED  DOCTRINES. 

CoNSTANTiNE  PoNCE  had  returned  from  the  Low 
Countries,*  and  occupied  the  post  left  vacant  by  the 
condemnation  and  death  of  Egidio,  at  the  period 
at  which  we  digressed  in  our  narrative  of  the 
progress  of  the  reformed  doctrines  in  Seville. 
Under  his  fostering  care  and  wise  superintendence, 
the  drooping  cause  recovered  from  the  shock  which 
it  had  received,  and  put  forth  fresh  effort  for  the 
spread  of  evangelical  religion  in  the  surrounding 
country.  In  his  office  of  divinity  professor  in  the 
College  of  Doctrine,  to  which  he  had  been  appointed 

*  He  had  been  previously  appointed  one  of  the  royal 
chaplains,  and  had  been  sent  to  the  Netherlands  to  accom- 
pany prince  Philip. 


CANON   MAGISTRAL.  121 

on  his  return  from  Flanders  in  1555,  he  delivered 
a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Scriptures,  which  had  the 
effect  of  opening  the  minds  of  many  of  the  young 
men  who  heard  him  to  the  truth.  He  was  appointed, 
about  the  same  time,  to  preach  every  alternate  day 
during  Lent  in  the  Cathedral  Church,  where  his 
fervid  eloquence  gathered  overflowing  congregations, 
to  whom  he  imparted  much  valuable  scriptural  in- 
struction, given,  however,  so  judiciously  as  to  excite 
no  suspicion  as  to  his  soundness  in  the  Eomish 
faith.  His  growing  popularity  as  a  preacher  had 
led  the  Chapter  to  fix  their  eyes  upon  him  as  the 
person  best  fitted  for  the  place  of  Canon  Magistral, 
which  was  then  vacant  through  the  death  of  Egidio, 
its  last  possessor.  For  these  canonries,  of  which 
there  are  three  in  every  episcopal  church  in  Spain, 
it  was  necessary  that  the  candidates  should  go 
through  literary  trials.  From  this  competition 
Egidio  had  been  exempted,  but  his  great  un- 
popularity immediately  after  his  induction,  and 
before  the  change  in  his  preaching,  which  we  have 
attributed  to  the  influence  exerted  by  De  Valer,  had 
led  the  Canons  to  record  a  resolution  that  for  the 
future  it  should  be  gone  through  in  the  case  of 
every  candidate  for  the  office. 

Constantine    refused    to    submit    to    the    trial, 
ridiculing   such   tests  as   absurd   and   puerile ;   but 


122  PREACHER 

at  last,  when  the  day  was  fixed  on  which  it  was 
to  be  held,  he  yielded  to  the  solicitations  of  his 
friends,  and  consented  to  offer  himself  as  a  candidate 
on  the  usual  conditions.  The  knowledge  of  this 
prevented  the  appearance  of  any  but  two  rivals,  one 
of  whom  afterwards  declined  to  enter  the  lists  with 
an  opponent  of  such  profound  and  varied  learning ; 
but  the  other,  spurred  on  by  the  enemies  of  Con- 
stantine,  engaged  in  the  literary  battle.  Failing  to 
overthrow  his  competitor  by  polemical  skill,  he 
altered  his  tactics,  and  fell  back  upon  personal 
charges  and  insinuations,  in  which  he  accused  his 
rival  of  having  been  married  before  he  had  taken 
orders,  and  of  other  irregularities  of  conduct  sub- 
sequently. To  these  were  added  an  unsupported 
and  unsuccessful  charge  of  heresy,  which  Constantine 
triumphantly  repelled  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  but 
his  defeated  and  chagrined  enemies.  He  carried  the 
election,  and  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  new  and 
influential  office  with  increased  popularity  and  use- 
fulness. 

To  his  labours  in  the  pulpit,  Constantine  super- 
added effort  to  disseminate  scriptural  knowledge 
throughout  the  country  by  means  of  the  press.  His 
writings  were  characterized  by  great  simplicity  and 
earnestness  of  style,  and  were  thus  fitted  for  impart- 
ing instruction  to  minds  of  the  humblest  capacity. 


AND   AUTHOR.  123 

Among  tliese  were  a  catecliisin  of  elementary  in- 
struction on  scriptural  subjects  j  a  treatise  on  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue 
between  a  teacher  and  his  pupil ;  an  exposition  of 
the  first  Psalm,  in  four  sermons  j  the  confession  of 
a  sinner,  in  which  the  simple  doctrines  of  the  Gospel, 
"poured  forth  from  a  contrite  and  humbled  spirit, 
assume  the  form  of  the  most  edifying  and  devotional 
piety."  In  his  summary  of  Christian  doctrine,  which 
was  printed  at  Antwerp,  and  to  which  was  appended 
"  the  Sermon  of  Christ  our  Eedeemer  on  the  Mount, 
translated,  with  explanations,  by  the  same  author," 
he  employed  a  style  more  fitted  for  educated  readers 
than  he  had  done  in  his  other  writings,  without, 
however,  rendering  the  work  above  the  easy  compre- 
hension of  all.  It  was  divided  into  two  parts,  in 
the  first  of  which  he  discussed  the  articles  of  faith, 
proposing  to  reserve  the  more  peculiar  doctrines  of 
Catholicism  for  examination  in  the  second.  This 
last,  however,  he  thought  it  neither  prudent  nor  safe 
to  publish  at  the  time,  preferring  to  reserve  it  for 
a  time  when  there  would  be  less  certainty  of  its 
own  suppression  and  of  its  author's  condemnation. 
That  period  he  never  lived  to  see,  and  consequently 
the  second  part  of  his  treatise  was  never  given  to 
the  world.  The  opinions  which  he  broached  in  the 
first   part,  though   expressed  with   all   the   caution 


124  NARROW   ESCAPE 

which  the  time  and  circumstances  called  for,  and 
relating  only  to  the  cardinal  truths  of  the  Gospel, 
without  touching  upon  any  of  the  distinctive  tenets 
of  the  Reformers,  were  sufficiently  obnoxious  to  the 
ruling  clergy  to  have  very  nearly  led  to  his  being 
denounced  to  the  Inquisition.  From  this,  however, 
his  great  popularity  for  a  time  preserved  him. 

De  Montes*  relates  an  incident  which  occurred 
shortly  after  the  return  of  Constantine  from  Flanders, 
and  which  nearly  brought  about  the  discovery  and 
apprehension  of  the  adherents  of  the  reformed  faith 
in  and  around  Seville.  As  an  illustration  of  the 
precarious  tenure  of  their  safety,  we  may  transcribe 
it.  One  Maria  Gomez,  a  domestic  of  Francisco 
Zafra,  a  doctor  of  laws,  and  who,  though  vicar  of  the 
church  of  San  Vincente,  was  secretly  attached  to  the 
Protestant  doctrine,  became  deranged  in  mind.  Like 
her  master,  she  had  been,  prior  to  her  insanity,  a 
constant  and  devoted  attendant  on  the  private 
meetings  of  the  Protestants,  and  had  in  this  way 
become  well  acquainted  with  them  all.  No  sooner 
had  her  intellect  become  disordered,  than  she  con- 
ceived a  most  violent  antipathy  to  her  former  fellow- 
worshippers,  and  called  out  in  her  ravings  for 
vengeance  upon  them  as  heretics.  Escaping  from 
the  confinement  to  which  it  had  been  found  necessary 

*  Inquu.  Ei»p.  Artes.  Detec,  pp.  294,  295. 


OF    THE    REFORMERS.  125 

to  subject  her,  she  sought  out  the  Inquisitors,  and 
upbraided  them  with  criminal  negligence  in  defend- 
ing the  purity  of  the  faith  against  heretics,  of  whom 
she  declared  Seville  to  be  full.  Though  her  derange- 
ment was  evident,  the  Inquisitors  fancied  that  her 
charges  had,  at  least,  some  foundation,  and  therefore 
readily  took  down  the  names  of  those  whom  she 
denounced  as  converts  to  the  reformed  faith.  Zafra, 
her  master,  was  sent  for,  and  very  wisely  obeyed  the 
summons.  With  much  presence  of  mind,  he  ridi- 
culed her  accusation  against  himself,  and  requested 
the  judges  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  ravings  of  an 
insane  woman.  Having  succeeded  in  convincing 
them  of  her  lunacy,  he  allayed  the  supicions  which 
her  statements  had  at  first  excited,  and  satisfied  them 
that  the  charges  which  she  had  made  were  merely 
the  visionary  workings  of  her  disordered  brain.  She 
was  given  up  to  her  master,  and  placed  in  closer  con- 
finement than  before.  Thus,  by  the  prudent  cool- 
ness of  Zafra — or  rather,  by  the  watchful  providence 
of  Him  who  warded  off  the  blow  which  had  nearly 
fallen  on  His  infant  Church — the  danger  was  averted, 
and  the  Protestants  saved. 

Shortly  before  this  narrow  escape,  the  friends  of 
the  reformed  faith  in  Seville  had  formed  themselves 
into  a  Church,  and  chosen  Christobal  Losada,  a 
doctor    of    medicine,  for   their   pastor.      They  met 


126        REFORM  IN  THE  CONVENTS. 

regularly  for  worship,  in  the  house  of  Isabella  de 
Baena,  a  lady  of  distinguished  rank.  Besides  her, 
many  of  the  Sevillian  nobility  had  secretly  joined 
themselves  with  the  Church,  and  laboured  zealously 
to  promote  its  interests.  Amongst  the  most  distin- 
guished were  Don  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon  and  Domingo 
de  Guzman.  Don  Juan  was  a  younger  son  of  Don 
Rodrigo,  Count  de  Baylen,  cousin-german  of  the 
Duke  d'Arcos,  and  closely  allied  to  many  of  the 
chief  nobility  of  Spain.  Domingo  de  Guzman  was 
a  son  of  the  Duke  de  Medina  Sidonia,  and  belonged 
to  the  order  of  the  Dominicans.  Both  he  and  Don 
Juan  laboured  hard  to  disseminate  a  knowledge  of 
the  Lutheran  doctrines.  Besides  these,  many  of  the 
clergy  had  become  secretly  attached  t-o  the  cause  of 
truth,  and  successfully  endeavoured  to  introduce  the 
Protestant  tenets  into  several  of  the  religious  insti- 
tutions in  Seville.  Of  these,  we  may  mention  the 
Dominican  Monastery  of  St.  Paul  j  the  convent 
of  St.  Elizabeth  ;  and  more  particularly  still,  the 
Hieronymite  Convent  of  St.  Isidro  del  Campo,  about 
two  miles  from  Seville.  In  this  last,  the  new 
doctrines  had  especially  progressed.  The  man  by 
whom  they  had  been  introduced  was  Garcia  de  Arias 
— from  the  whiteness  of  his  hair,  commonly  called 
Dr.  Blanco.  This  singular  individual  deserves  a 
passing  notice.      He  has   been    well    described   as 


DR.    BLANCO.  127 

having  possessed  "  an  acute  mind  and  extensive 
information ;  but  he  was  undecided  and  vacillating 
in  his  conduct,  partly  from  timidity,  and  partly  from 
caution  and  excess  of  refinement.  He  belonged  to 
that  class  of  subtle  politicians,  who,  without  being 
destitute  of  conscience,  are  wary  in  committing 
themselves,  forfeit  the  good  opinion  of  both  parties, 
by  failing  to  yield  a  consistent  support  to  either,  and 
trusting  to  their  address  and  dexterity  to  extricate 
themselves  from  difficulties,  are  sometimes  caught  in 
the  toils  of  their  own  intricate  management." 

Though  secretly  attached  to  the  reformed  cause,  he 
was  the  public  champion  of  the  orthodox  faith,  and 
was  looked  to  by  the  clergy  as  an  authority  in  all 
matters  of  disputed  doctrine  or  discipline  in  the 
Church.  Soon  after  his  reception  of  the  Lutheran 
tenets,  he  began  to  introduce  them  gradually,  but 
with  characteristic  caution,  into  the  convent  to  which 
he  belonged,  by  impressing  on  his  brother-monks,  in 
his  sermons  and  private  conversations,  that  true 
religion  did  not  consist  in  chanting  vespers  and 
matins,  or  in  the  performance  of  any  of  the  empty 
ceremonies  with  which  their  time  was  generally 
occupied,  but  in  the  devotional  study  of  the  word  of 
God,  and  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  which  it 
inculcates.  He  thus,  by  degrees,  instilled  into  their 
minds  a  longing  for  a  purer  and  more  spiritual  piety, 


128  DISCONTINUANCE   OF   INDULGENCES. 

than  the  monotonous  devotions  to  which  they  had 
been  accustomed.  But,  true  to  the  description  of 
his  vacillating  character,  which  we  have  quoted,  he 
suddenly  changed,  and  became  as  zealous  in  recom- 
mending, as  he  had  been  previously  in  deprecating, 
the  bodily  mortifications  and  other  monastic  observ- 
ances of  his  order.  This  sudden  and  unaccountable 
change  in  one  to  whom  they  had  looked  up  as  their 
example  and  guide,  led  the  monks  to  suspect  the 
soundness  of  his  judgment,  or  the  sincerity  of  his 
purpose  in  thus  altering  his  course.  In  their  per- 
plexity, they  consulted  Egidio,  and  by  his  instruc- 
tions and  advice,  were  confirmed  in  their  attachment 
to  the  doctrines  against  which  Arias  now  so  zealously 
inveighed.  In  1557,  they  received  a  large  supply 
of  the  Scriptures  in  the  Spanish  language,  the  study 
of  which  contributed  to  build  them  up  still  more 
strongly  in  the  faith  of  the  GospeJ.  A  complete 
reformation  of  the  internal  policy  of  the  convent 
was  effected ;  the  absurd  practices  which  had  long 
been  established  were  abandoned  ;  papal  indulgences 
and  pardons,  which  had  previously  been  a  source  of 
much  profit,  were  discontinued  j  and  the  debasing 
habits  of  monachism  were  superseded  by  strict 
attention  to  the  duties  of  a  spiritual  religion. 
Though  compelled  to  shield  themselves,  by  continu- 
ing to  use  the  monastic  dress,  and  to  celebrate  mass, 


JUAN   DE    REGLA.  129 

everything  else  was  changed,  and  the  convent  re- 
sembled a  Christian  family,  more  than  a  fraternity 
of  superstitious  monks. 

Nor  were  the  effects  of  this  salutary  change  con- 
fined to  the  monastery  of  St.  Isidro.  The  monks 
became  industrious  propagators  of  the  reformed 
doctrines  in  the  surrounding  country,  and  succeeded 
in  introducing  them  into  other  monasteries  of  their 
own  order,  several  of  whose  most  distinguished 
members  incurred  the  suspicion  of  heresy.  Of 
these,  we  may  mention  Juan  de  Eegla,  prior  of 
Santa  Fe,  and  provincial  of  the  Hieronymite  order 
in  Spain.  This  eminent  scholar  and  divine  had 
taken  part  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Trent, 
at  its  second  meeting,  where  he  was  a  strenuous 
defender  of  the  Romish  Church.  But  havincr  subse- 
quently  embraced  some  of  the  reformed  doctrines,  he 
was  denounced  to  the  Inquisition  of  Saragossa,  and 
condemned  to  do  penance,  and  abjure  the  doctrines 
against  which  objection  had  been  taken.  After  his 
recantation,  he  became  one  of  the  most  violent 
opponents  of  Lutheranism  in  Spain,  and  was  subse- 
quently appointed  chaplain  to  the  Emperor,  and, 
after  his  abdication,  to  Philip  II.  Besides  De  Regla, 
another  distinguished  Hieronymite,  Francisco  de 
Villalba,  was  charged  with  adoption  of  Lutheran 
doctrines,  and  tried  before  the  Inquisition  of  Toledo. 


130  REASONS   WHY   THE   EMPEBOR 

Failing  to  establish  the  charge  at  first,  they  remanded 
him,  till  further  evidence  could  be  obtained  to  justify 
a  conviction  ;  but  before  that  could  be  procured,  he 
sunk  under  the  hardships  of  his  imprisonment,  and 
escaped  a  more  cruel  though  less  lingering  death. 

From  these  facts,  the  reader  will  be  able  to  form 
some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  Protestantism  had 
spread  in  this  part  of  the  Peninsula.  Its  adherents, 
it  will  have  been  seen,  were  not  confined  to  the 
lower  ranks,  but  numbered  amongst  them  not  a  few 
of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  nobility  and  clergy. 
In  spite  of  the  jealous  vigilance  of  the  Inquisition, 
the  new  doctrines  were  gradually  leavening  the  popu- 
lation, and  preparing  for  themselves  such  a  general 
adoption,  as  would  speedily  have  constituted  a  power 
that  might  successfully  have  braved  even  its  formid- 
able hostility.  Charles,  though  devotedly  attached 
to  the  Romish  Church,  and  a  bitter  enemy  of  the 
reformed  doctrines,  was  engaged  in  that  series  of 
brilliant  campaigns,  which  had  established  his  power 
over  Milan,  NapleSj  Sicily,  and  the  Netherlands  ;  and 
though  doing  his  utmost  to  crush  the  Reformation 
in  the  land  of  its  birth,  he  paid  but  little  attention 
to  the  spread  of  its  doctrines  in  his  paternal  domin- 
ions, trusting  to  the  Inquisition  to  protect  Spain 
from  the  contamination  of  heresy.  He  had  enough 
of  the  religious  element   in  his  character  to  make 


OPPOSED   THE   REFORMATION.  131 

him  zealous  in  the  service  of  the  Church  ;  but 
political  ambition  was  too  preponderating  a  feature, 
to  allow  spiritual  affairs  to  hold  any  but  a  secondary- 
place  in  his  thoughts.  He  opposed  Luther  and  the 
Protestant  princes  of  Germany,  not  so  much  because 
they  opposed  Eome,  but  because  they  were  erecting  a 
barrier  against  the  accomplishment  of  his  own 
cherished  designs  of  universal  dominion  in  Europe. 
By  the  aid  of  the  Papacy,  he  had  succeeded  in 
crushing  the  liberties  of  Spain,  and  substituting  in 
their  stead  an  iron  despotism  ;  and  by  the  help  of 
the  same  power,  he  sought  to  establish  his  absolute 
sway,  not  only  over  the  States  of  Germany,  but  over 
nearly  all  the  nations  of  the  Continent.  His  first 
objection  to  Protestantism  in  his  home  dominions 
would  have  arisen  out  of  its  tendency  to  indispose 
the  people  to  submit  to  the  despotic  authority  which 
he  exercised ;  and  then,  doubtless,  his  educational 
attachment  to  Popery  would  have  led  him  to  maintain 
its  rule  unimpaired,  and  to  oppose  everything  calcu- 
lated to  weaken  its  power  over  the  minds  of  his 
people.  His  absence,  however,  in  Germany,  relieved 
the  Spanish  Protestants  from  the  additional  obstacles 
which  his  presence  would  have  thrown  in  the  way 
of  the  spread  of  their  doctrines ;  and  they  were 
not  slow  in  making  the  most  of  the  prolonged 
opportunity. 


132      EXTENSION  OF  THE  REFORMATION 

Whilst  Protestantism  was  spreading  as  we  have 
seen,  in  and  around  Seville,  its  adherents  in  Valla- 
dolid  were  neither  idle  nor  unsuccessful  in  propa- 
gating the  reformed  doctrines  in  the  city  and  the 
adjacent  country.  The  Church,  under  Domingo  de 
Koxas,  had  largely  increased,  and  reckoned  amongst 
its  members,  as  in  Seville,  several  of  the  clergy  and 
nobility.  Not  a  few  of  the  monasteries  were 
leavened  by  the  Lutheran  tenets,  and  had  secretly 
abandoned  many  of  the  peculiar  institutions  of 
Popery.  From  Valladolid  the  new  doctrines  spread 
widely  through  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Leon.  In 
the  cities  of  Toro,  Zamora,  Aldea  del  Palo,  and 
Pedeosa,  and  throughout  the  diocese  of  Palencia,  it 
had  many  converts,  and  amongst  them  not  a  small 
number  of  the  resident  clergy.  Spreading  further 
through  Old  Castile  to  Soria,  in  the  diocese  of  Osma, 
it  reached  Logrono,  on  the  borders  of  Navarre,  in 
which  last-named  town  its  adherents  were  very 
numerous.  This  extensive  diffusion  of  the  reformed 
opinions  was  largely  owing  to  the  efforts  of  Don 
Carlos  de  Soso,  a  nobleman  of  distinguished  learning 
and  rank.  In  Toro,  of  which  he  was  mayor,  in 
Zamora,  and  the  episcopal  city  of  Palencia,  he 
afforded  valuable  aid  to  the  reformed  cause,  by  circu- 
lating Lutheran  books,  and  by  his  personal  instruc- 
tions.     In  New  Castile,  the  Reformation  was  less 


FAVOURED   IN    VARIOUS    COUNTRIES.  133 

successful,  although  it  had  many  friends  in  Toledo, 
and  other  parts  of  that  country.  In  the  provinces 
of  Granada,  Murcia,  and  Valencia,  it  had  made  con- 
siderable progress  ;  but  in  the  kingdom  of  Aragon 
it  had  been  especially  prosperous.  In  Saragossa, 
Huesca,  Balbastro,  and  in  many  other  towns,  churches 
had  been  formed,  and  a  vigorous  agency  organized, 
for  the  diffusion  of  the  new  doctrines  in  the  sur- 
rounding districts. 

How  powerfully  does  this  success  of  the  Protestant 
opinions,  in  such  a  country  as  Spain,  illustrate  the 
inherent  excellence  and  energy  of  Christianity !  In 
the  face  of  the  unparalleled  diflBculties  against  which 
the  Reformation  had  to  contend,  it  spread  and 
gained  ground  rapidly.  In  no  other  country  had 
it  such  obstacles  to  overcome.  In  Germany,  many 
of  the  princes  had  embraced  its  doctrines,  and 
were  exerting  their  influence  on  its  behalf.  Its 
adherents  were  protected  and  favoured ;  the  Bible 
was  freely  circulated  in  the  vernacular  tongue,  and 
its  doctrines  explained  and  enforced  from  almost 
every  pulpit.  In  Scotland,  its  advantages  were 
almost  equally  great.  In  England,  the  quarrel  which 
led  Henry  VIII.  to  throw  off  submission  to  the  Pope, 
resulted  in  similar  blessings  to  the  people,  as  regarded 
their  religious  liberty.  And  even  in  France,  and 
several  of  the  Italian  States,  there  were  many  checks 


134  PECULIAR   OBSTACLES 

on  persecution,  which  afforded  a  kind  of  protection 
to  those  who  embraced  the  reformed  doctrines.  But 
in  Spain,  not  one  of  these  advantages  existed. 
Everything  that  could  fetter  the  intellect,  and  crush 
the  earliest  tendency  to  dissent  from  the  faith  of 
Rome,  was  brought  to  bear  upon  the  people.  The 
Inquisition  had  its  police  in  every  corner  of  the 
land ;  the  feeblest  expression  of  sympathy  with  the 
forbidden  doctrines  marked  its  author  as  their  lawful 
prey,  and  secured  for  him  a  dungeon  or  the  stake. 
National  prejudice  was  fostered  and  intensified  ; 
social  disgrace  was  attached  to  the  crime  of  apostasy, 
not  only,  as  we  have  elsewhere  remarked,  to  the  party 
condemned,  but  to  his  latest  posterity.  To  them  the 
heirloom  of  infamy  descended,  without  losing  a 
particle  of  its  original  blackness.  How  great 
must  have  been  the  essential  power  of  the  Gospel,  to 
surmount  such  difficulties,  and  gain  for  itself  so  wide 
a  reception  !  Nothing  short  of  "  the  power  of  God  " 
could  have  borne  down  such  opposing  barriers,  and 
have  subdued  so  many  enemies,  by  its  gentle  yet 
powerful  influence,  exerted  silently  and  without 
parade,  on  the  minds  of  a  people  so  unlikely  to 
embrace  and  hold  fast  its  truths.  It  would  have 
spread  like  sunlight  through  the  darkened  land,  had 
these  obstacles  to  its  progress  been  removed.  One 
of  its  bitterest  enemies  admits,  that  "had  not  the 


IN    SPAIN.  135 

Inquisition  taken  care  in  time  to  put  a  stop  to  tbese 
preachers,  the  Protestant  religion  would  have  spread 
throughout  Spain  like  wild-fire ;  people  of  all  ranks, 
and  of  both  sexes,  having  been  wonderfully  disposed 
to  receive  it."*  Another  of  its  enemies  makes  a 
similar  confession  : — "  All  the  prisoners  in  the  In- 
quisitions of  Valladolid,  Seville,  and  Toledo,  were 
persons  abundantly  well  qualified.  I  shall  here  pass 
over  their  names  in  silence,  that  I  may  not,  by  their 
bad  fame,  stain  the  honour  of  their  ancestors,  and 
the  nobility  of  the  several  illustrious  families  which 
were  infected  with  this  poison.  And  as  these  pri- 
soners were  persons  thus  qualified,  so  their  number 
was  so  great,  that  had  the  stop  put  to  that  evil  been 
delayed  two  or  three  months  longer,  I  am  persuaded 
all  Spain  would  have  been  set  in  a  flame  of  fire  by 
them."  t  A  late  Protestant  writer  (already  quoted) 
on  this  period  of  Spanish  ecclesiastical  history  says 
to  the  same  effect.  "  So  powerful,"  remarks  Dr. 
Geddes,  "  were  the  doctrines  of  the  Keformation  in 
those  days,  that  no  prejudices  nor  interests  were  any- 
where strong  enough  to  hinder  piously- disposed 
minds,  after  they  became  thoroughly  to  understand 
them,  from  embracing  them.  And  that  the  same 
doctrines  have  not  still   the  same   divine   force,  is 

*  Paramo,  His.  Inquisitionis. 
+  lUescas,  His.  Pontifical,  torn.  ii.  f.  451,  a. 


136  THREE    GREAT   DOCTRINES. 

neither  owing  to  their  being  grown  older,  nor  to 
Popery's  not  being  so  gross,  nor  to  any  change  in 
people's  natural  dispositions,  but  is  owing  purely  to 
the  want  of  the  same  zeal  for  those  doctrines  in  their 
professors,  and  especially  for  the  three  great  doctrines 
of  the  Reformation,  which  the  following  martyrs 
sealed  with  their  blood ;  which  were,  that  the  Pope 
is  Antichrist  j  that  the  worship  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  is  idolatrous  ;  and  that  a  sinner  is  justified  in 
the  sight  of  God  by  faith,  and  through  Christ's,  and 
not  through  his  own,  merits."* 

Amongst  a  people  so  disposed  to  embrace  and  hold 
fast  the  pure  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  it  needed  re- 
pressive measures  of  no  common  violence  to  put 
down  the  Reformation. 

*  Miscellaneous  Tracts,  vol.  i.  p.  450  [preface  to  Spanish 
Martyrology]. 


CHANGE   OF   SOVEREIGNS,  137 


^^ttt  Mm% 


DISCOVERT  OF  THE  PRO  PEST  ANTS,  AND  SUPPRESSION  OF  THE 
REFORMATION. 

Whilst  the  Eeformation  was  thus  gradually  pro- 
gressing, Spain  had  changed  sovereigns.  In  1556, 
the  Emperor  Charles,  vt^orn  out  by  military  toils  and 
the  ravages  of  the  gout,  carried  into  execution  his 
long- meditated  project  of  retiring  from  the  world? 
to  spend  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  monastic  devo- 
tions. Having  assembled  the  States  of  the  How 
Countries  at  Brussels,  he  seated  himself  for  the  last 
time  in  the  chair  of  state,  and  there,  surrounded  by 
a  splendid  retinue  of  the  princes  of  the  empire  and 
grandees  of  Spain,  amidst  the  most  imposing  solem- 
nity ever  witnessed  since  the  days  of  the  Eoman 


13S  EESIGNATION   OF   EOYAL   POWER 

Caesars,  he  surrendered  to  his  son  Philip  all  his 
territories,  jurisdiction,  and  authority,  in  the  Nether- 
lauds. 

In  his  address  to  the  kneeling  prince,  he  said, — 
"It  is  in  your  power,  by  a  wise  and  virtuous  ad- 
ministration, to  justify  the  extraordinary  proof  which 
I  give  this  day  of  my  paternal  affection,  and  to 
demonstrate  that  you  are  worthy  of  the  extraordinary 
confidence  which  I  repose  in  you.  Preserve  an  in- 
violable regard  for  religion ;  maintain  the  Catholic 
faith  in  its  purity ;  let  the  laws  of  your  country  be 
sacred  in  your  eyes ;  encroach  not  on  the  rights  of 
your  people  ;  and,  if  the  time  should  ever  come  when 
you  shall  wish  to  enjoy  the  tranquillity  of  private 
life,  may  you  have  a  son  to  whom  you  can  resign 
your  sceptre  with  as  much  satisfaction  as  I  give  up 
mine  to  you."  In  recounting  to  his  deeply  affected 
audience  the  many  great  schemes  which  he  had 
planned  and  carried  out,  he  observed — "  Either  in  a 
hostile  or  pacific  manner,  I  have  visited  Germany 
nine  times,  Spain  six  times,  France  four  times,  Italy 
seven  times,  the  Low  Countries  ten  times,  England 
twice,  Africa  as  often  j  and  while  my  health  per- 
mitted me  to  discharge  the  duty  of  sovereign,  and 
the  vigour  of  my  constitution  was  equal  in  any 
degree  to  the  arduous  office  of  governing  such  ex- 
tensive   dominions,    I    never    shunned   labour    nor 


BY   CHARLES   V.  139 

repined  under  fatigue ;  but  now,  when  my  health 
is  broken,  and  my  vigour  exhausted  by  the  rage  of 
an  incurable  distemper,  my  growing  infirmities  ad- 
monish me  to  retire ;  nor  am  I  so  fond  of  reigning, 
as  to  retain  the  sceptre  in  an  impotent  hand  which 
is  no  longer  able  to  protect  my  subjects.  Instead 
of  a  sovereign,  worn  out  with  diseases  and  scarce 
half  alive,  I  give  you  one  in  the  prime  of  life, 
already  accustomed  to  govern,*  and  who  adds  to  the 
vigour  of  youth  all  the  attention  and  sagacity  of 
maturer  years." 

In  a  few  weeks  afterwards,  he  resigned  with  equal 
solemnity,  and  in  an  assembly  no  less  splendid,  the 
crown  of  Spain  and  its  dependent  territories,  re- 
serving only  a  pension  of  100,000  crowns,  to  defray 
the  expense  of  his  few  attendants,  and  afford  him  a 
small  sum  for  acts  of  benevolence  and  charity.  The 
place  which  he  chose  for  his  retreat  was  the  monas- 
tery of  St.  Juste,  one  of  the  most  secluded  and 
delightful  situations  in  the  province  of  Estremadura. 
There,  in  silence  and  solitude,  burying  the  vast 
schemes  of  military  glory  and  political  dominion, 
which,  for  half  a  century,  had  filled  with  terror  all 
the  nations  of  Europe,  he  spent  the  evening  of  his 
life  in  practising  the  most  rigid  and  self-denying 

*  He  had  already  resigned  his  Italian  dominions  to  Philip, 
on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage. 


140  PHILIP,    THE   NEW   SOVEREIGN, 

devotions  of  his  religion,  and  died  on  the  21st  of 
September,  1558.  Thus  ended  the  life  of  the  most 
powerful  sovereign  Europe  had  seen  since  the  days 
of  Charlemagne  and  the  Empire  of  the  West; 

Philip  differed  much  from  his  father.  A  gloomy, 
cruel,  and  vindictive  bigot  from  his  youth,  he  proved 
himself  the  determined  and  unrelenting  enemy  both 
of  civil  and  religious  freedom.  The  blind  tool  of 
Rome,  he  stopped  short  at  no  injustice  or  cruelty  to 
establish  its  authority  and  promote  its  most  nefa- 
rious designs,  as  well  amongst  his  own  subjects  as 
wherever  else  his  influence  extended.  From  such 
a  sovereign  the  Spanish  Protestants  had  little  mercy 
to  expect.  The  history  of  Protestantism  in  the 
Peninsula,  from  the  beginning  of  his  reign  till  the 
suppression  of  the  Reformation,  is  little  more  than  a 
martyrology  of  its  adherents.  With  this  painful 
subject  this  and  the  following  chapter  will  be  mainly 
taken  up. 

Shortly  after  the  accession  of  Philip,  he  applied  to 
Pope  Paul  IV,  for  the  increase  of  the  powers  of  the 
Inquisition.  The  request  was  readily  complied  with 
by  the  Pontijff,  and  bulls,  ad  lihitum,  were  issued, 
enlarging  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Office  to  any 
required  extent.  All  the  decisions  of  previous  coun- 
cils and  popes,  against  heretics  and  schismatics,  were 
renewed,  and   Valdes,   the   Inquisitor-General,    was 


EXTENDS   THE    INQUISITION.  141 

charged  to  put  forth  increased  effort  for  the  dis- 
covery and  punishment  of  all  such  offenders, 
"  whether  they  were  bishops,  archbishops,  patriarchs, 
cardinals  or  legates,  barons,  counts,  marquises,  dukes, 
princes,  kings,  or  emperors."  Agreeably  to  these 
instructions,  Valdes  issued  orders  to  all  the  tribu- 
nals of  the  Inquisition  throughout  the  country,  to 
search  for  heretical  books,  and  to  make  a  public 
auto-da-fe  of  all  such  as  they  should  discover,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  make  increased  effort  for  the 
discovery  of  heretics  themselves. 

Simultaneously  with  these  directions  from  the 
Inquisitor-General,  Philip  published  a  law  by  which 
death,  with  confiscation  of  property,  was  the  punish- 
ment to  be  inflicted  on  all  who  sold,  bought,  read, 
or  possessed  any  of  the  forbidden  books.  In  the 
following  year  the  Pope  issued  a  bull,  enjoining  all 
confessors  to  examine  their  penitents  on  this  point, 
and  to  charge  them,  under  pain  of  excommunication, 
to  denounce  all  whom  they  knew,  or  had  solid  reason 
to  suspect,  to  be  guilty  of  this  offence ;  by  the  same 
bull,  neglect  of  this  duty  by  the  confessors  subjected 
themselves  to  the  pains  and  penalties  threatened 
against  their  penitents.  The  Pontiff  further  autho- 
rized the  Inquisitor-General  to  hold,  during  two 
years  from  the  day  on  which  the  order  was  given, 
an  investigation  into  the  orthodoxy  of  all  bishops, 


142       INCREASED    POWER   OF   THE    INQUISITION, 

archbishops,  patriarchs,  and  primates  in  Spain ;  inas- 
much as  he  had  reason  to  suspect  that  not  a  few  of 
these  dignitaries  were  favourably  inclined  to  the 
reformed  faith. 

In  addition  to  these  measures,  a  further  stimulus 
was  given  to  informers  by  a  renewal  of  the  royal 
ordinance,  which  had  fallen  into  disuse,  and  by  which 
a  fourth  of  the  property  of  those  condemned  for 
heresy  should  be  given  to  the  individuals  by  whom 
they  had  been  denounced.  But  even  these  barbarous 
and  unjust  decrees  were  not  considered  sufficient  to 
accomplish  the  extinction  of  the  dreaded  Reforma- 
tion. And  in  1559,  the  Pope  issued  another  brief, 
by  which  the  Inquisitors  were  ordered  to  deliver 
over  to  the  secular  arm — in  other  words,  to  execu- 
tion— all  who  had  been,  or  should  be,  convicted  of 
having  taught  the  reformed  opinions,  even  though 
they  had  not  relapsed  and  should  be  willing  to 
abjure  their  errors.  What  magnified  the  atrocious 
injustice  of  this  law  was,  that  it  was  intended  to 
operate  against  those  who  had  offended  prior  to  its 
enactment,  and  thus  apply  to  the  prisoners  who  were 
then  within  the  dungeons  of  the  Holy  Office. 

The  publication  of  these  and  other  similar  pontifi- 
cal ordinances  so  increased  the  functions  of  the  In- 
quisition, that  it  was  thought  necessary  to  appoint 
additional    agents.      To    support    these,   the   Pope 


HOW   SUPPORTED.  143 

authorized  the  Inquisitors  to  appropriate  certain 
ecclesiastical  revenues ;  besides  which,  they  were 
empowered  to  raise  an  extraordinary  subsidy  of  a 
hundred  thousand  ducats  of  gold  to  be  paid  by  the 
clergy.  This  heavy  tax  upon  the  income  of  the 
holy  fathers  tested  the  sincerity  of  their  zeal  against 
heresy.  The  wisdom  and  justice  of  the  other  pon- 
tifical decrees  had  not  been  questioned ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  every  injunction  they  contained,  however 
iniquitous,  had  met  with  their  ready  obedience. 
Not  so  with  this  last,  however ;  it  required  the 
exercise  of  the  secular  power  to  enforce  compliance 
with  its  provisions. 

The  Council  of  the  Supreme  had  been  led  to 
apply  for  these  additional  powers  from  the  king  and 
Pope,  by  information  which  they  received  at  the 
close  of  the  year  1557,  of  the  importation  of  a  large 
quantity  of  Bibles  and  Lutheran  books  from  Germany 
and  the  Netherlands,  and  likewise  of  the  fact  that 
the  adherents  to  the  Protestant  doctrines  were 
rapidly  multiplying  throughout  the  country,  not- 
withstanding all  the  efforts  which  had  been  made 
for  the  suppression  of  heresy.  Koused  by  this  in- 
formation, they  resolved  to  call  into  action  more 
prompt  and  vigorous  instruments  than  they  had 
yet  employed.  They  reorganised  the  Inquisitorial 
police,  and  adopted  an  improved  system  of  detective 


144  FAITHFULNESS   AND   TREACHERY. 

agencies,  which  speedily  resulted  in  the  wished-for 
discoveries.  The  first  of  these  led  to  the  arrest  of 
Julian  Hernandez,  a  native  of  Villaverda  in  the 
district  of  Campos,  and  the  man  by  whom  the 
proscribed  books  had  been  introduced  into  Spain. 
Hernandez  had  shown  a  copy  of  the  New  Testament 
to  a  smith,  who  denounced  him  to  the  Inquisition 
as  a  zealous  propagator  of  the  new  doctrines. 
Having  at  the  first  examination  before  the  Inquisi- 
torial tribunal  refused  to  inform  against  his  associates, 
he  was  put  to  the  torture.  He  endured  it  heroically, 
and  refused  to  give  any  clue  by  which  his  fellow- 
Protestants  could  be  discovered ;  at  the  same  time 
openly  confessing  his  own  attachment  to  the  re- 
formed cause,  and  glorying  in  having  been  the 
instrument  in  supplying  his  ignorant  and  misguided 
countrymen  with  such  treasures  as  Bibles  in  their 
own  tongue.  Promises,  threats,  and  tortures,  were 
alike  useless  j  he  would  inculpate  none. 

Failing  to  elicit  any  information  from  Hernandez, 
they  had  recourse  to  other  and  more  successful 
measures.  By  means  of  the  confessional,  they  in- 
duced the  wife  of  one  Juan  Garcia,  a  member  of 
the  Protestant  church  in  Valladolid,  to  inform  against 
her  husband,  and  to  disclose  the  place  in  which  the 
friends  of  the  reformed  faith  were  accustomed  to 
meet  for  worship.     Her  treachery  was  rewarded  by 


AN   INQUISITORIAL   COUP-DE-MAIN.  14o 

a  pension  for  life,  paid  from  the  public  funds.  Just 
about  the  same  time  at  which  the  Inquisitors  made 
this  discovery  in  Valladolid,  the  members  of  the 
Holy  Office  in  Seville  succeeded  in  obtaining  similar 
information  about  the  members  of  the  Lutheran 
church  in  that  city. 

Thus  furnished  with  the  knowledge  which  they 
had  so  long  endeavoured  to  procure,  the  Inquisitors 
determined  "  at  once  to  crush  the  viper's  nest "  by 
simultaneous  action  of  all  their  tribunals  throughout 
the  country.  Instructions  were  sent  to  all  their 
agents  to  be  ready  to  co-operate  with  the  chief 
institutions  in  Valladolid  and  Seville,  when  the 
signal  for  action  should  be  given.  Having  made 
these  arrangements,  and  taken  care  to  provide 
against  the  escape  of  the  victims  from  the  meshes 
of  the  net  spread  for  them,  they  began  the  arrests 
on  the  same  day  throughout  the  various  localities 
about  which  information  had  been  received.  In 
one  day  two  hundred  were  seized  in  Seville,  a 
number  which  speedily  increased  to  eight  hundred. 
In  Valladolid  eighty  were  apprehended,  whilst  the 
number  of  arrests  by  the  other  tribunals  throughout 
the  country  was  proportionate. 

This  unexpected  coup-de-main  of  the  Inquisition 
filled  the  panic-stricken  Protestants  with  the  wildest 
alarm,  and  deprived  them  for  the  time  of  the  cool 


146  WHOLESALE   ARRESTS 

self-possession  on  which  alone  their  safety  depended. 
Thrown  into  disorder  by  the  apprehension  of  those 
who  could  control  and  advise  them,  many  brought 
upon  themselves,  by  their  imprudent  precipitancy, 
the  fate  from  which  they  were  endeavouring  to 
escape.  Under  the  influence  of  the  sudden  terror 
which  the  unsuspected  blow  had  inspired,  some 
surrendered  themselves  to  the  Inquisition,  and 
confessed  their  connection  with  the  reformed  church, 
vainly  hoping  to  purchase  clemency  by  self-accusa- 
tion j  whilst  others  attempted  to  cross  the  Pyrenees 
or  escape  by  sea,  but  were  followed  and  overtaken. 
Others,  again,  who  succeeded  in  reaching  a  Protes- 
tant country,  were  entrapped  by  the  agents  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  brought  back  into  Spain,  to  expiate 
their  heresy  and  flight  by  the  endurance  of  multiplied 
cruelties.  The  number  of  the  arrested  was  so  great 
in  Seville,  that  all  the  prisons  and  convents,  besides 
several  private  houses,  were  crowded  with  the  objects 
of  Inquisitorial  vengeance. 

Amongst  those  who  succeeded  in  making  good 
their  retreat,  were  twelve  of  the  Hieronymite  monks 
of  the  Convent  of  San  Isidro  del  Campo,  already 
mentioned.  They  left  Spain  separately,  and  by 
difierent  routes,  and  met  in  Geneva,  after  wander- 
ing through  various  parts  of  the  Continent  for 
twelve  months.      Their  flight  was  speedily  known 


AND    PROLONGED    IMPRISONMENTS.  147 

by  the  Inquisition,  and  drew  down  its  most  violent 
persecution  on  those  of  their  order  who  remained 
behind.  This  death-blow  to  Protestantism  in  Spain 
was  given  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1558. 

Having  thus  secured  their  victims,  the  next  object 
with  the  Inquisition  was  to  dispose  of  them  in  such 
a  manner  as  would  most  effectually  strike  terror  into 
the  minds  of  the  whole  nation.  They  were  anxious 
to  render  the  closing  scene  in  the  terrible  tragedy 
which  they  contemplated,  as  great  a  triumph  to 
their  church  as  possible ;  and,  for  this  purpose, 
delayed  the  vengeance  which  they  had  in  store  for  the 
imprisoned  Protestants  for  nearly  two  years.  During 
that  period  they  endeavoured  to  secure  as  many 
recantations  as  false  promises  of  mercy,  which  they 
inwardly  resolved  to  extend  to  none,  could  induce 
their  captives  to  make.  But,  though  lavish  in 
assurances  of  pardon  to  all  who  would  abjure  their 
heresies,  or  inform  against  any  who  had  not  been 
denounced,  they  succeeded  in  gaining  but  few 
penitents  out  of  the  vast  numbers  arrested. 

In  the  mean  time  the  unhappy  victims,  subjected 
to  every  hardship  and  cruelty  which  Inquisitorial 
ingenuity  could  invent,  endured  all  the  misery  which 
the  severity  of  their  imprisonment,  and  the  uncer- 
tainty of  the  fate  which  awaited  them,  could  not 
fail  to  produce.     Amongst  those  whose  health  broke 


148       SUFFERINGS  OF  CONSTANTINE. 

down  under  these  protracted  sufferings,  was  Con- 
stantine  Ponce  de  la  Fuente.  He  had  been  one  of 
the  first  whom  the  eager  Inquisitors  had  pounced 
upon.  They  had  long  suspected  his  attachment  to 
the  reformed  faith,  but  had  failed,  through  the 
extreme  caution  with  which  he  acted  and  spoke,  in 
procuring  any  evidence  of  his  heresy  that  could 
justify  the  arrest  of  a  man  so  much  in  favour  with 
the  Emperor,  and  so  universally  beloved  by  the 
people.  It  was  not  to  be  expected,  however,  that 
want  of  satisfactory  evidence  would  save  a  man 
whose  popularity  they  had  so  long  viewed  with  a 
jealous  eye,  when  they  were  vested  with  the  power 
of  almost  indiscriminate  arrest.  When  brought 
before  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition,  he  maintained 
his  innocence,  and  repelled  the  charges  which  had 
been  brought  against  him,  so  successfully  as  to 
baffle  all  their  efforts  to  convict  him  of  holding  any 
opinions  opposed  to  the  established  creed.  As  there 
had  been  little  beyond  suspicion  of  heresy  to  justify 
his  arrest  at  the  first,  he  would,  in  all  probability, 
have  succeeded  in  escaping,  had  not  an  unforeseen 
occurrence  given  them  proof  of  his  heterodoxy 
which  it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  disprove. 

Amongst  those  who  had  been  apprehended  at  the 
same  time  as  himself,  was  Dona  Isabella  Martinia, 
a  widow  lady  of   high  respectability.      Before  the 


DISCOVERY    OF    MSS.  149 

usual  inventory  of  the  property  of  tlie  accused  had 
been  taken,  her  son,  Francisco  Bertran,  had  managed 
to  conceal  his  mother's  jewels  from  the  agents  of  the 
Holy  Office.  A  treacherous  servant,  however,  had 
watched  him,  and  some  time  after  gave  information 
to  the  Inquisitors.  An  alguazil  was  immediately 
despatched  to  demand  the  surrender  of  the  hidden 
valuables.  As  soon  as  the  officer  reached  the  house, 
the  alarmed  youth,  without  waiting  to  hear  the 
object  of  his  visit,  declared  his  readiness  to  deliver 
up  what  the  alguazil  had  come  for.  Leading  him 
to  a  concealed  recess,  separated  from  the  main 
chamber  by  a  thin  panelling,  Bertran  disclosed  a 
large  number  of  Lutheran  books  and  several  works 
in  manuscript,  which  Constantine  had  entrusted  to 
his  mother  for  greater  security  a  short  time  before 
the  storm  had  burst  upon  the  reformed  cause  in 
Seville.  The  surprised  alguazil  concealed  his  delight 
at  this  unexpected  discovery,  and  intimated  his 
desire  to  have  the  concealed  jewels  likewise  given 
up.  Valuable  as  were  the  latter,  the  Inquisitors 
prized  the  books  even  more  highly,  since  they  fur- 
nished the  evidence  which  the  holy  fathers  had  so 
long  sought  for  in  vain.  Amongst  the  manuscripts 
was  the  second  part  of  Constantine's  Suinmary  of 
Christian  Doctrine,  already  noticed,  in  which  he 
treated  of  the  main  points  in  dispute  between  the 


150      CONVICTION  OF  DE  LA  FUENTE, 

Romish  and  Reformed  Churches ;  discussing  at 
great  length  the  doctrines  of  justification  by  faith, 
good  works,  the  sacraments,  purgatory,  and  other 
questions  at  issue  between  the  contending  parties. 
Constantine  at  once  acknowledged  himself  to  be  the 
author  of  the  volume,  and  declared  his  firm  belief 
in  all  the  sentiments  it  contained,  adding,  "  It  is 
unnecessary  for  you  to  produce  further  evidence  ; 
you  have  there  a  candid  and  full  confession  of  my 
belief.  I  am  in  your  hands ;  do  with  me  as  seemeth 
to  you  good." 

Having  convicted  Constantine,  they  next  en- 
deavoured to  elicit  from  him  information  against  his 
friends,  but  in  vain  ;  no  means  which  they  could 
employ  could  induce  him  to  disclose  anything  by 
which  any  of  his  fellow- prisoners  might  be  injured. 
After  the  death  of  the  Emperor,  he  was  removed 
from  the  apartment  in  which  he  had  been  till  then 
confined,  to  a  damp  and  noisome  dungeon,  to 
which  neither  air  nor  light  had  access.  This  increase 
to  the  previous  rigours  of  his  imprisonment  in  a 
short  time  brought  on  dysentery,  of  which  he  died, 
after  having  been  confined  for  nearly  two  years. 
So  great  were  the  cruelties  to  which  he  had  been 
exposed,  that  he  was  heard  to  exclaim,  a  short  time 
before  his  death  : — "  O  my  God !  are  there  no 
Scythians  in  the  world,  no  cannibals,   more  fierce 


AND    PROHIBITION   OF   HIS   WORKS.  151 

and  cruel  than  Scythians,  into  whose  hands  thou 
canst  throw  me,  so  that  I  may  but  escape  the  talons 
of  these  wretches  ? "  Having  thus  been  spared  the 
fate  his  enemies  had  in  store  for  him,  they  endea- 
voured to  compensate  themselves  for  the  loss  by 
circulating  the  report  that  he  had  committed  suicide 
in  his  prison.  This  calumny,  though  repeated  by 
some  subsequent  Romish  historians,  was  abundantly 
disproved  by  the  evidence  of  a  young  monk  of 
San  Isidro,  who  had  been  confined  in  the  same 
dungeon  with  Constantine,  and  attended  him  in  his 
last  moments. 

It  was  customary  after  the  condemnation  of  any 
one  who  had  written  books,  to  prohibit  them.  In 
the  case  of  Constantine's  works  there  was  a  peculiar 
difficulty  which  presented  itself,  inasmuch  as  they 
had  been  already  published  with  the  approbation 
of  the  Inquisitors,  who  were  now  thoroughly  puzzled 
as  to  how  they  should  act  in  the  matter.  After 
much  consideration,  they  at  last  resolved  to  forbid 
their  circulation ;  "  not,"  they  said,  "  because  they 
had  found  anything  in  them  worthy  of  condemnation, 
but  because  it  was  not  fit  that  any  honourable  memo- 
rial of  a  man  doomed  to  infamy  should  be  transmitted 
to  posterity." 

Besides  Constantine,  Olmedo,  a  man  almost 
equally   distinguished   for  his   learning    and   piety, 


152   UNPARALLELED  CRUELTY  AND  PERJURY 

sunk  under  the  horrors  to  which  the  captive  Protes- 
tants were  subjected  in  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Nor  was  he  the  only  additional  victim  ;  many 
whose  names  have  not  come  down  to  us,  perished 
either  on  the  rack  or  amid  the  poisoned  atmosphere 
and  filth  of  their  overcrowded  cells.  Of  the  vast 
numbers  imprisoned,  one  only  had  recourse  to  the 
fearful  remedy  of  suicide.  The  unhappy  being  who 
thus,  in  a  fit  of  distraction,  put  an  end  to  her  life, 
was  one  Juana  Sanchez,  a  heata,  or  kind  of  secular 
nun.  Havinor  obtained  the  knowledo^e  of  her  con- 
demnation,  she  anticipated  the  dreadful  consequence 
by  cutting  her  throat  with  a  pair  of  scissors,  and 
after  lingering  a  few  days,  died  of  the  wound.  The 
wonder  is  that  more  of  her  fellow-prisoners  were 
not  driven  to  end  their  sufferings  by  the  same 
desperate  means. 

Not  the  least  of  the  cruelties  to  which  they  were 
exposed,  were  those  practised  by  the  Inquisitors  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  evidence  from  some  of  the 
prisoners  by  which  others  of  their  number  might  be 
convicted.  One  instance  will  be  sufficient  to  give 
the  reader  an  idea  of  the  means  employed  for  this 
purpose.  Amongst  those  who  had  been  arrested  in 
Seville  on  suspicion  of  heresy,  were  the  widow  and 
three  daughters  of  Fernando  Nugnez,  a  native  of 
Lepe.     They  were  all  put  to  the  torture  to  elicit 


TO    EXTORT    CONFESSION.  153 

a  confession,  but  in  vain.  Failing  in  this,  one  of 
the  Inquisitors  sent  for  the  youngest  daughter,  and 
pretending  to  sympathize  with  her  and  pity  her 
sufferings,  bound  himself  by  an  oath  not  to  betray 
her  if  she  would  confess  to  him,  and  that  he  would 
save  her  mother,  her  sisters,  and  herself.  Trusting 
to  his  oath,  and  ensnared  by  the  specious  promises 
of  liberty  which  he  held  out,  she  revealed  all  the 
tenets  which  they  had  embraced ;  whereupon  the 
perjured  wretch,  having  thus  atrociously  gained  his 
end,  immediately  ordered  her  to  be  put  to  the  rack 
a  second  time.  She  was  at  once  brought  back  to 
the  torture-chamber,  and  then,  in  presence  of  the 
judges,  was  compelled  tO  repeat  the  confession  which 
she  had  made  in  reliance  upon  the  oath  of  her 
deceiver.  Under  this  second  infliction  of  the 
torture,  she  let  fall  expressions  which  supplemented 
her  previous  admissions,  and  led  to  the  arrest  and 
ultimate  condemnation  of  several  of  the  other  ad- 
herents to  the  reformed  faith. 

So  notoriously  cruel  and  unjust  were  the  means 
employed  to  extort  evidence  from  the  prisoners 
against  each  other,  during  this  period,  that  a  public 
investigation  into  the  Inquisitorial  proceedings  was 
called  for,  and  to  some  extent  obtained,  by  several 
individuals  of  high  rank  in  the  church.  Puigblanch 
tells  us  that  about  the  year  1560,  Senor  Enriquez, 


154     A   CHARGE    LAID    AGAINST   THE    INQUISITION. 

Abbot  of  the  then  Collegiate  Church  of  Valladolid, 
laid  a  remonstrance  before  Philip  II.  against  the 
Inquisition  of  that  city,  in  which  he  speaks  of  the 
arbitrariness  and  avarice  of  its  ministers,  and  how 
extremely  advisable  it  would  be  for  magistrates  of 
the  Crown  to  take  part  in  its  trials.  In  proof  of 
its  designing  conduct,  he  asserts  that  in  the  cause 
of  Canon  Cazalla,  the  officers  had  allowed  the  nuns, 
who,  like  him,  were  imprisoned  on  the  plea  of 
Lutheranism,  to  converse  with  each  other,  in  order 
that  by  confirming  themselves  the  stronger  in  their 
errors,  they  might  be  enabled  to  condemn  them. 
As  an  additional  proof  of  this,  and  of  the  vice 
having  extended  to  other  tribunals,  he  adds  that, 
having  himself  entered,  in  company  with  the  Bishop 
of  Palencia,  into  the  prisons  of  the  Inquisition  of 
Toledo,  and  reduced  a  Flemish  prisoner  to  penance 
who  had  not  relapsed,  the  Inquisitors  refused  to 
grant  him  the  pardon  of  his  life,  owing  to  the  Auto 
of  the  faith  being  already  proclaimed,  whereas, 
according  to  practice,  he  had  not  lost  his  right  to 
receive  pardon  till  his  sentence  was  read  on  the 
platform.  As  a  testimony  of  their  avarice,  he  affirms 
that  the  Inquisitors  of  Valladolid  had  a  shameful 
dispute  among  themselves  respecting  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  confiscated  money  belonging  to  the 
unfortunate  Cazalla.* 

*  Inquisition  Unmasked,  vol.  ii.  pp.  273,  274. 


A    GRAND   AUTO    ON   TEINITY    SUNDAY.         155 

Having  now  spent  nearly  two  years  in  hunting 
out  victims,  and  in  torturing  those  whom  they  had 
taken,  for  the  purposes  we  have  mentioned,  the 
Holy  Office  resolved  to  signalize  its  triumphs  by  the 
celebration  of  autos-da-fe  throughout  the  kingdom. 

The  first  of  these  dreadful  exhibitions  occurred  at 
Valladolid,  on  Trinity  Sunday,  May  21,  1559.  To 
render  the  occasion  more  solemn,  and  to  increase 
the  dignity  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  eyes  of  the 
people,  Don  Carlos,  the  heir  apparent,  and  his  aunt 
Juana,  queen  dowager  of  Portugal,  and  regent  of 
the  kingdom  during  the  absence  of  Philip  in  the 
Netherlands,  made  their  appearance  in  the  midst  of 
the  assembly,  seated  on  a  throne  erected  for  them  on 
one  side  of  the  grand  Square  between  the  Church 
of  St.  Francis  and  the  house  of  the  Consistory, 
where  the  execution  was  to  take  place. 

Before  the  ceremony  began,  an  oath  was  ad- 
ministered to  them,  in  which  they  pledged  them- 
selves to  support  the  Inquisition,  and  to  reveal 
faithfully  and  promptly  whatever  they  might  discover 
which  threatened  any  danger  to  the  faith.  Don 
Carlos,  who  was  at  that  time  only  fourteen  years 
of  age,  is  said  to  have  inwardly  vowed  from  that 
moment  an  eternal  enmity  to  the  infamous  insti- 
tution which  thus  sought  to  fetter  his  understanding, 
and  establish    a  power  of   control  over  his  future 


156  PENITENTS   OF   NOTE, 

course.  Besides  the  prince  and  his  aunt,  most  of 
the  principal  nobility  of  Spain  were  present  to 
witness  the  performance  of  the  fearful  tragedy. 

The  execution,  and  the  various  ceremonies  attend- 
ing it,  lasted  from  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  till 
two  in  the  afternoon,  a  period  which  was  hardly 
long  enough  to  satiate  the  morbid  curiosity  of  the 
assembled  crowds.  When  the  usual  sermon  had 
been  preached  at  the  commencement  of  the  pro- 
ceedings, by  Melchior  Cano,  Bishop  of  the  Canaries 
and  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  divines 
present,  the  prisoners  were  brought  forward  to 
undergo  their  respective  sentences.  They  were 
thirty  in  number,  of  whom  sixteen  were  penitents ; 
of  the  remaining  fourteen,  two  were  burnt  alive, 
whilst  the  rest  were  first  strangled  and  then  com- 
mitted to  the  flames. 

Amongst  the  penitents  who  appeared  at  this  auto, 
were  several  individuals  of  high  rank.  Of  these 
we  may  mention  Don  Pedro  Sarmiento  de  Rojas, 
son  of  the  first  Marquis  de  Poza.  This  nobleman 
was  stripped  of  his  decorations  as  chevalier  of  the 
order  of  St.  James,  and  condemned  to  wear  a 
perpetual  sanbenito,  to  be  imprisoned  for  life,  and 
at  death  to  have  his  memory  declared  infamous. 
Dona  Maria  de  Figueroa,  his  wife,  was  likewise 
sentenced  to  perpetual  imprisonment,  and  to  wear 


PUNISHED   AT   THE    AUTO-DA-FE.  157 

the  sanbenito  and  coroza.*  His  nepliew,  Don  Luis 
de  Rojas,  eldest  son  of  the  second  Marquis  de  Poza, 
and  grandson  of  the  Marquis  d'  Alcaguizes,  was 
banished  from  Madrid,  Yalladolid,  and  Palencia,  yet 
forbidden  to  leave  the  kingdom ;  and  deprived  of 
his  right  of  succession  to  the  titles  and  estates  of 
his  father.  Don  Luis'  aunt,  Dona  Ana  Henriquez 
de  Eojas,t  wife  of  Don  Juan  Alonso  de  Fonesca 
Merxia,  appeared  in  the  sanbenito,  and  was  con- 
demned to  be  separated  from  her  husband,  and  to  be 
confined  for  the  remainder  of  her  life  in  a  monastery. 
Don  Juan  de  Ulloa  Pereira,  brother  of  the  Marquis 
de  la  Mota,  was  Hkewise  sentenced  to  wear  the 
sanbenito  and  to  be  imprisoned  for  life,  with  loss  of 
all  his  honours  as  Commander  of  the  Order  of 
St.  John  of  Jerusalem ;  but,  having  subsequently 
appealed  to  the  Pope,  he  was  restored  to  his  rank, 
and  exempted  from  the  punishment  to  which  he 
had  been  condemned.  Juan  de  Vibero  Cazalla,  an 
inhabitant  of  Valladolid,  his  wife,  Dona  Silva  de 
Bibera,  his  sister.  Dona  Constanza,  widow  of  an 
officer  in  the  royal  household,  Maria  de  Saavedra, 
widow  of  Juan  Cisueros  de  Soto,  and  Leonora  de 

*  A  coronet  made  of  pasteboard,  and  worn  by  those  upon 
whom  any  punishment  was  inflicted  by  the  Inquisition. 

+  Llorente  calls  this  lady  a  nun  of  the  convent  of  St. 
Cataline,  in  Valladolid. 


158  TIMIDITY   OF   CAZALLA. 

Cisneros*  (whose  husband,  Antonio  Herezuelo,  an 
advocate,  was  burned  alive)  together  with  four  other 
individuals  of  inferior  rank,  were  condemned  to  wear 
the  sanbenito,  have  their  property  confiscated,  and  be 
imprisoned  for  life. 

Of  the  fourteen  who  suffered  death  on  this 
occasion,  the  greater  part  were  persons  of  high 
respectability,  and  some  of  them  held  offices  of 
importance  in  the  Church.  Amongst  the  latter 
was  Dr.  Augustin  Cazalla,  whose  zeal  for  the  re- 
formed faith  we  have  already  noticed,  t  When  the 
storm  burst  upon  the  Protestants,  he  and  his 
mother.  Dona  Leonora  de  Vivera,  his  three  brothers, 
and  two  sisters,  were  amongst  the  first  of  those  who 
were  consigned  to  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition. 
Though  equally  attached  to  the  Lutheran  doctrines, 
this  divine,  whom  a  Popish  historian  J  acknowledges 
to  have  been  "a  most  eloquent  preacher,"  was 
inferior  in  courage  to  many  of  his  fellow-prisoners. 
When  brought  before  the  judges,  he  denied  most 
explicitly  that  he  had  ever  preached  the  reformed 
doctrines,  though  he  confessed  that  he  had  privately 
embraced  them.  He  expected  by  this  declaration, 
and  by  the  submission  with  which  he  received  the 

*She  was  subsequently  burnt,  after  several  years'  im- 
prisonment. 

t  Supra,  p.  62.  Ij:  Paramo. 


VICTIMS   STRANGLED   AND    BURNED.  159 

rebukes  of  the  Inquisitors,  to  escape  any  further 
punishment  than  that  which  was  usually  inflicted 
on  reconciled  penitents.  But  on  the  evening  before 
the  auto-da-fe,  he  was  visited  by  one  of  the  fathers, 
who  acquainted  him  with  his  sentence.  At  the 
place  of  execution  he  was  granted  the  poor  favour 
of  being  strangled  before  he  was  thrown  into  the 
flames.  Though  this  was  the  boon  usually  granted 
to  relapsed  penitents,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe 
that  he  became  reconciled  to  the  Church  of  Kome 
before  his  death.  This  report  was  spread  by  the 
Inquisitors,  but  if  he  had  done  so,  "  why,"  says  the 
author  of  the  Miscellaneous  Tracts,  "did  they  burn 
him,  having  never  relapsed  1  And  would  it  not 
have  been  more  for  their  interest  to  have  suffered 
him  to  live,  and  to  have  obliged  him  to  have  preached 
to  his  converts  to  follow  his  example,  than  to  have 
burnt  him  out  of  the  way  ? " 

The  same  fate  was  shared  by  Cazalla's  sister.  Dona 
Beatrice  de  Yibero ;  by  Dr.  Alonso  Perez,  "  a  priest 
of  great  learning  and  exemplary  piety,  and  a  most 
fervent  preacher  ;"  by  Don  Christobal  de  Olcampo, 
chevalier  of  the  Order  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  and 
almoner  to  the  grand  prior  of  Castile  ;  by  Don  Chris- 
tobal de  Padilla  ;  Dona  Catalina  de  Ortega,  daughter- 
in-law  to  the  fiscal  of  the  royal  council  of  Castile ; 
and  six  others,  all  of  whom  were  Protestants,  ex- 


160  BURNED   ALIVE, 

cept  Gonzales  Baez,  a  relapsed  Jew.  Cazalla's 
mother,  Dona  Leonora  de  Vivera,  having  died  be- 
fore the  celebration  of  this  auto,  her  bones  were  dug 
up,  and,  together  with  her  effigy,  were  committed  to 
the  same  flames  which  destroyed  the  bodies  of  her 
children.  Her  house,  in  which  the  Protestants  had 
been  accustomed  to  meet  for  worship,  was  razed  to 
the  ground,  its  site  was  sown  with  salt,  and  a  pillar 
was  erected  on  the  spot,  with  an  inscription,  stating 
the  cause  of  its  demolition.  This  last  monument  of 
Inquisitorial  fanaticism  and  impotent  revenge  re- 
mained standing  till  removed  by  the  French,  during 
their  temporary  occupation  of  Spain  in  1800. 

The  two  individuals  who  were  burned  alive  on 
this  occasion,  were  Francisco  de  Yibero  Cazalla, 
brother  of  Dr.  Augustin,  and  parish  priest  of  Hor- 
migos,  in  the  bishopric  of  Palencia,  and  Antonio 
Herezuelo,  the  advocate.  Llorente  inclines  to  the 
opinion,  that  the  former  when  under  the  torture 
recanted,  and  begged  to  be  reconciled  to  the  com- 
munion of  the  Romish  Church ;  but  whether  this 
be  the  case  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  he  manifested 
no  such  wishes  on  the  day  of  his  execution,  but 
heroically  refused  to  purchase  strangulation  on  the 
usual  terms.  Herezuelo  endured  his  fate  with  a 
courage  worthy  of  the  cause  for  which  he  suffered. 
The   only  thing  that  affected  him  was,  the  sight  of 


FORTITUDE   OF   HEREZUELO.  161 

his  wife  amongst  the  penitents  instead  of  being  at 
the  stake.  Kefusing  to  pay  attention  to  the  two 
monks  who  accompanied  him  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, he  was  addressed  by  Dr.  Cazalla,  who  sought 
thus  unworthily  to  purchase  clemency  for  himself. 

In  his  account  of  this  auto-da-fe,  the  popish  his- 
torian, Illescas,  thus  describes  the  admirable  courage 
with  which  he  endured  the  horrors  of  the  stake : — 
"The  bachelor  Herezuelo  suffered  himself  to  be 
burned  alive  with  unparalleled  hardihood.  I  stood 
so  near  him,  that  I  had  a  complete  view  of  his  per- 
son, and  observed  all  his  motions  and  gestures.  He 
could  not  speak,  for  his  mouth  was  gagged,  on 
account  of  the  blasphemies  which  he  had  uttered  j 
but  his  whole  behaviour  showed  him  to  be  a  most 
resolute  and  hardened  person,  who,  rather  than  yield 
to  believe  with  his  companions,  was  determined  to 
die  in  the  flames.  Though  I  marked  him  narrowly, 
I  could  not  observe  the  least  symptom  of  fear,  or 
expression  of  pain  ;  only  there  was  a  sadness  on  his 
countenance  beyond  anything  I  had  ever  seen.  It 
was  frightful  to  look  on  his  face,  when  one  considered 
that  in  a  moment  he  would  be  in  hell,  with  his 
associate  and  master,  Luther."  "He  perished  in 
silence,"  says  Llorente. 

On  the  return  of  Philip  from  the  Netherlands, 
where  he  had  left  the  Duchess  of  Parma  as  regent 
M 


162  COMPARATIVE   ESTIMATE 

during  his  absence,  the  Holy  Office,  on  the  8th  of 
October  in  the  same  year,  again  led  its  victims  to 
the  grand  square  of  the  city  of  Valladolid.  Philip 
attended,  in  company  with  his  son,  his  sister  Juana, 
the  prince  of  Parma,  three  ambassadors  from  France, 
and  a  large  and  brilliant  assemblage  of  the  nobility 
and  clergy  of  the  kingdom. 

This  second  batch  of  victims  consisted  of  twenty- 
nine  persons,  sixteen  of  whom  were  penitents,  the 
remaining  thirteen  being  destined  for  the  flames. 
The  case  of  one  of  the  former  affords  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  indifference  of  the  Inquisitors  to 
the  worst  of  crimes,  so  as  they  tended  to  further 
the  accomplishment  of  their  own  designs. 

Amongst  the  penitents  was  one  Antonio  Sanchez, 
a  native  of  Salamanca,  who  had  been  found  guilty 
of  falsely  accusing  a  Jewish  Christian  of  circumcising 
a  child,  for  which  supposed  violation  of  the  law,  the 
accused  convert  was  condemned  to  be  burnt  to  death. 
The  perjury  of  Sanchez  was  clearly  proved,  and 
though  not  merely  natural  justice,  but  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  Holy  Office  acted,  demanded 
that  such  crimes  should  be  visited  with  the  weightiest 
penalties,  as  an  example  to  others ;  he  was  sentenced 
to  endure  no  more  severe  punishment  than  200 
lashes  of  the  whip,  and  to  be  condemned  to  the 
galleys  for  five  years ;  while,  on  the  very  same  occa- 


OF   CRIME.  163 

sion,  they  condemned  a  poor  barber — one  Pedro 
d'Aguilar — to  receive  400  lashes,  and  to  be  sent  to 
the  galleys yor  life,  for  no  greater  offence  than  playing 
some  tricks  in  the  assumed  character  of  a  familiar  of 
the  Inquisition  !  Such  was  the  comparative  esti- 
mate formed  by  the  holy  fathers  of  meditated  mur- 
der and  the  personation  of  one  of  their  own  alguazils. 
The  most  distinguished  of  the  other  penitents  were 
three  nuns  of  the  order  of  Belen,  Dona  Francisca 
Zuniga  de  Baeza,  a  heata  of  Valladolid,  Dona  Isabella 
de  Castilla,  wife  of  Don  Carlos  de  Soso,  and  her 
niece^  Dona  Catalina.  Don  Carlos  himself  was 
amongst  those  who  perished  in  the  flames.  He  had 
been  arrested  in  Logrono,  in  which  city  and  the 
surrounding  districts  we  have  seen  how  zealously 
and  successfully  he  laboured  in  the  cause  of  evan- 
gelical truth.  During  a  long  and  painful  imprison- 
ment, he  bore  with  unshaken  firmness  and  constancy 
the  cruelties  to  which  he  was  subjected,  and  resisted 
equally  every  effort  of  his  tormentors  to  induce  him 
to  inform  against  others,  or  to  abjure  the  faith  which 
he  had  embraced.  Instead  of  seeking  to  secure  his 
own  safety  by  any  compromise,  he  boldly  avowed, 
when  brought  before  the  judges,  his  devoted  attach- 
ment to  the  doctrines  of  the  reformed  creed,  and 
denounced  the  Romish  Church  as  alike  fatal  to  the 
temporal  and  spiritual  well-being  of  men.     When 


164  HEROIC   DEATHS 

informed  of  his  sentence  on  the  evening  before  his 
execution,  he  asked  for  writing  materials,  and  wrote 
out  a  confession  of  his  faith,  which  was  entirely 
Lutheran ;  he  said  that  this  doctrine,  and  not  that 
taught  by  the  Romish  Church,  which  had  been  cor- 
rupted for  several  centuries,  was  the  true  faith  of 
the  Gospel ;  that  he  would  die  in  that  belief,  and 
that  he  offered  himself  to  God  in  memory  of  the 
passion  of  Jesus  Christ.  "It  would  be  difficult," 
says  the  secretary  of  the  Inquisition,  "to  express 
the  vigour  and  energy  of  his  writing,  which  filled 
two  sheets  of  paper."  On  the  morning  of  his  execu- 
tion he  was  gagged,  to  prevent  his  addressing  the 
other  prisoners;  when  he  arrived  at  the  stake  the 
gag  was  removed,  and  the  attendant  friars  renewed 
their  efforts  to  induce  him  to  recant,  but  in  vain. 
His  reply  was,  "If  I  had  time,  I  would  convince 
you  that  you  are  lost,  by  not  following  my  example. 
Hasten  to  light  the  wood  which  is  to  consume  me." 
He  died  without  a  struggle  or  a  groan. 

Pedro  de  Cazalla,  a  second  brother  of  Dr.  Augustin 
Cazalla,  was  another  of  the  victims  on  this  occasion. 
He  was  arrested  on  the  23rd  of  April,  1558,  and, 
on  being  brought  before  the  tribunal  of  the  Holy 
Office,  admitted  his  attachment  to  the  Lutheran 
faith.  Some  time  after,  he  expressed  his  willing- 
ness to  return  to  the   communion  of  the  Romish 


OF   VARIOUS   MARTYRS.  165 

Church,  but  his  request  was  not  complied  with, 
because  he  had  preached  the  heretical  doctrines.  On 
the  day  preceding  the  auto,  he  was  asked  to  confess, 
but  refused  ;  the  horrors  of  the  stake,  however,  over- 
came him.  As  the  flames  were  about  to  be  lighted, 
he  asked  for  a  confessor,  after  which  he  was  strangled 
and  then  cast  into  the  flames. 

Dominic  Sanchez,  a  priest  of  Villamediana,  who 
had  been  converted  by  De  Soso,  shared  the  same  fate 
as  Cazalla. 

Domingo  de  Roxas,  son  of  the  Marquis  de  Poza, 
had  been  arrested  in  the  garb  of  a  layman  at  Cala- 
horra,  on  his  way  to  Flanders.  He  made  his  first 
declaration  before  the  Inquisition,  on  the  13th  of 
May,  1558,  on  which  and  some  subsequent  appear- 
ances, he  let  fall  some  expressions  which  led  the 
judges  to  order  him  to  be  tortured,  with  a  view  to 
elicit  fuller  information.  Having  entreated  that 
he  might  be  spared  the  horrors  of  the  question,  as 
he  dreaded  it  more  than  death,  the  order  was  re- 
voked, on  condition  that  he  would  reveal  all  he 
knew.  He  then  begged  to  be  reconciled,  but  refused 
to  give  any  information  that  could  injure  his  fellow- 
prisoners.  On  the  night  before  his  death,  he  seems 
to  have  recovered  his  firmness,  for  he  refused  the 
services  of  the  priest  who  had  been  sent  to  confess 
him,  and  declared  his  determination  to  die  in  the 


166  DONA   MAKINA   DE   GUEVARA. 

reformed  faith.  TKis  declaration  he  renewed  in 
presence  of  the  king  on  the  following  day,  but 
coupled  it  with  an  appeal  to  the  royal  mercy  on 
behalf  of  himself  and  his  fellow-sufferers.  Philip, 
sternly  ordering  the  guards  to  move  him  on  to  the 
stake,  replied,  "I  would  carry  wood  to  burn  my 
own  son,  were  he  such  a  wretch  as  thou."  When 
fastened  to  the  stake,  his  courage  again  failed  j  he 
demanded  a  confessor,  received  absolution,  was 
strangled,  and  then  burned. 

Juan  Sanchez,  a  servant  of  Pedro  de  Cazalla,  had 
been  arrested  at  Turlingen  and  sent  back  to  Valla- 
dolid,  whence  he  had  endeavoured  to  escape,  under 
the  assumed  name  of  Juan  de  Vibar,  when  the 
storm  first  broke  out.  He  resisted  all  attempts  to 
induce  him  to  recant,  both  during  his  confinement 
and  at  the  stake.  When  the  cords  which  bound 
him  were  burned  through,  he  darted  to  the  top  of 
the  scaffold,  seeing  from  whence  the  firmness  with 
which  Don  Carlos  de  Soso  endured  his  sufferings,  he 
returned  to  the  stake,  and,  calling  for  more  fuel, 
perished  without  a  struggle. 

Dona  Euphrosyne  Rios,  a  nun  of  the  order  of 
St.  Clara,  had  been  convicted  of  heresy  by  twenty- 
two  witnesses ;  when  fastened  to  the  stake,  she 
called  for  a  confessor,  and  having  received  absolution 
was  strangled  and  afterwards  burned. 


HER   CONSTANCY.  167 

Of  the  others  who  suffered  death  on  this  occasion, 
we  shall  mention  only  Dona  Marina  de  Guevara,  a 
nun  of  St.  Helen,  in  Valladolid.  When  arrested, 
she  had  at  first  confessed  her  defection  from  the 
established  faith,  and  expressed  her  willingness  to 
recant.  This,  however,  did  not  save  her ;  she  was 
condemned  to  expiate  her  heresy  at  the  stake.  Her 
cousin;  Valdes,  the  Inquisitor-General,  used  all  his 
influence  on  her  behalf,  but  the  ordinary  judges 
resisted  his  interference  as  an  encroachment  upon 
their  authority,  and  refused  to  revoke  their  sentence. 
He  then  commissioned  Don  Alphonso  Tellez  Giron 
and  the  Duke  of  Osma  to  visit  the  accused,  and 
try  to  obtain  such  a  recantation  as  would  save  her 
life.  The  attempt  failed.  Instead  of  complying, 
she  expressed  her  regret  at  the  partial  recantation 
which  she  had  already  made,  and  declared  her  entire 
belief  of  the  Lutheran  tenets.  Don  Alphonso  was 
sent  a  second  time,  accompanied  by  one  of  the 
Inquisitors,  but  with  no  better  success  than  at  first. 
The  only  favour  Valdes  could  obtain  for  her  was 
that  she  should  be  strangled  before  being  committed 
to  the  flames. 

Such  were  the  two  famous  autos-da-fe  of  Valla- 
dolid. In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  give  an  account 
of  those  which  were  celebrated  in  Seville  and  other 
parts  of  the  kingdom. 


168  THE  FIRST  AITTO 


€|iifto  iig^t|. 


SUPPRESSIVE  MEASURES  CONTINUED   AND  COMPLETED. 

The  reader  will  have  noticed  how  comparatively 
large  a  proportion  of  the  Protestant  captives  in 
Valladolid  had  purchased  life,  or  a  less  protracted 
kind  of  death,  by  a  profession  of  penitence.  It  was 
for  this  reason  that  Valladolid  was  preferred  to 
Seville,  as  the  scene  on  which  the  Holy  Office  was 
to  celebrate  its  first  triumphs  over  heresy;  for, 
although  Seville  contained  by  far  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  prisoners,  the  efforts  of  the  Inquisitors  in 
that  city  had  been  much  less  successful  in  gaining 
back  converts  to  the  faith  than  in  Valladolid.  A 
tolerably  correct  estimate  of  the  probable  sincerity 
of  these  recantations  may  be  formed  from  what  has 
been  said  j   yet  they  afforded  the  holy  fathers   an 


AT   SEVILLE.  169 

opportunity,  which  they  highly  prized,  of  exhibiting, 
before  the  sovereign  and  the  people  at  large,  an 
array  of  triumphs  which  they  could  not  boast  of 
in  any  other  city  in  the  kingdom. 

The  fires  of  the  Inquisition  in  Seville  were  lighted 
for  the  first  time  on  the  24th  of  September,  1559. 
The  place  chosen  for  the  celebration  of  this  auto 
was  the  square  of  St.  Francis,  in  which  was  a  large 
and  brilliant  assemblage  of  the  nobility  and  superior 
clergy,  besides  vast  crowds  of  the  populace,  whom 
the  same  bigotry  and  morbid  curiosity  had  brought 
together.  Four  bishops  were  present,  the  coadjutor 
of  Seville,  those  of  Largo,  the  Canaries,  and  Tarra- 
zona,  the  last-mentioned  prelate  being  the  resident 
Vice-Inquisitor-  General  in  Seville. 

One  hundred  and  one  prisoners  appeared  on  this 
occasion,  of  whom  twenty- one  suffered  death,  and 
eighty  were  condemned  to  various  kinds  of  severe 
penance.  The  most  distinguished  person  amongst 
the  former  was  Don  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon,  cousin 
to  the  Duke  d'Arcos,  and  related  to  the  Duchess 
de  Bejar,  both  of  whom  were  present  at  his  execu- 
tion. A  short  time  after  his  arrest,  he  had  been 
induced  by  the  false  promises  of  liberty  for  himself 
and  his  friends,  which  had  been  as  plentifully  given 
in  Seville  as  in  Yalladolid,  to  plead  guilty  to  the 
indictment  which  had  been  drawn  up  against  him ; 


170  GONZALEZ   AND   HIS   SISTERS. 

but  hardly  had  he  done  so,  when  he  perceived  the 
deception  which  had  been  practised,  and  recalled  the 
partial  expression  of  penitence  with  which  his  con- 
fession had  been  accompanied.  From  that  time  till 
the  day  of  his  execution,  he  stedfastly  adhered  to 
his  declaration  of  attachment  to  the  Lutheran  faith, 
and  refused  to  purchase  his  life  at  the  expense  of 
his  religion.  At  the  stake  he  maintained  the  same 
unwavering  resolution,  and  proved  his  constancy  by 
his  death  as  he  had  done  by  his  life. 

The  same  dignified  and  resolute  demeanour  was 
exhibited  by  Don  Juan  Gonzalez  and  his  two  sisters, 
who  perished  with  him.  Don  Juan  was  a  priest  of 
Seville,  and  one  of  the  most  celebrated  preachers 
in  Andalusia.  At  twelve  years  of  age  he  had  been 
imprisoned  on  suspicion  of  Mahometanism,  because 
he  was  descended  of  Moorish  ancestors,  but  was 
afterwards  liberated.  When  urged  to  recant  his 
Lutheran  errors,  he  refused,  affirming  that  his 
opinions  were  founded  on  the  holy  Scriptures,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  erroneous.  As  he  entered 
the  square  of  St.  Francis,  he  sung  the  109th  Psalm, 
and  then  turned  to  encourage  his  sisters,  whom  the 
awfulness  of  the  scene  was  beginning  to  depress. 
At  the  stake,  the  attendant  friars  urged  his  sisters, 
in  repeating  the  creed,  to  insert  the  word  Roman 
in  the  clause  relating  to  the  "  CathoUc  Church,"  but 


GARCIA   DE   ARIAS.  171 

they  professed  their  resolution  strictly  to  imitate 
the  example  of  their  brother,  and  Juan  persisting  in 
his  refusal  to  alter  the  confession  which  he  had 
already  made,  they  were  strangled,  and  he  hurled 
alive  into  the  flames. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  record,  in  the  space 
at  our  disposal,  all  the  instances  of  constancy  on 
the  one  side,  and  barbarity  on  the  other,  to  be  met 
with  in  the  history  of  this  auto-da-fe;  but  these 
martyrs  of  Seville  exhibited,  almost  without  an 
exception,  a  heroism  worthy  of  the  cause  for  which 
they  died,  and  such  as  was  equalled  only  in  in- 
dividual cases  by  those  who  suffered  elsewhere. 

Thus  did  the  once  wavering  and  inconstant  Garcia 
de  Arias  meet  his  fate.  A  thorough  revolution  had 
gradually  taken  place  in  his  character,  some  time 
before  the  flight  of  his  brother  monks  of  San  Isidro 
and  the  arrest  of  the  Protestants  in  Seville.  He 
had  laid  aside  the  equivocal  caution  by  which  his 
leanings  towards  Lutheranism  had  been  concealed, 
and  was  amongst  the  earliest  of  those  who  were 
consigned  to  the  dungeons  of  the  Triana.  During 
his  imprisonment,  he  manifested  a  firmness  of  at- 
tachment to  the  reformed  cause,  which  neither 
torture  nor  promises  of  life  and  liberty  could  shake. 
He  ascended  the  scaffold,  leaning  on  his  staff",  but 
went  to  the  stake  manifesting  a  spirit  of  unflinching 


172  MARIA   DE   BOHORQUES. 

fortitude,  and  rejoicing  that  God  had  thought  him 
worthy  to  suffer  for  so  good  a  cause.  Three  of  his 
brother-monks  suffered  with  him. 

Another  conspicuous  sufferer  was  Christobal  de 
Losada,  pastor  of  the  Protestant  church  in  Seville. 
When  he  arrived  at  the  stake,  the  friars  who  attended 
the  ceremony  importuned  him  to  renounce  his  errors, 
but  he  replied  by  entering  into  a  connected  and 
well-sustained  argument  in  defence  of  the  Lutheran 
doctrines ;  when  the  friars,  perceiving  that  the 
spectators  listened  eagerly  to  what  he  advanced, 
began  to  speak  in  Latin,  in  which  language  he 
continued  his  defence  with  the  same  ease  and  ele- 
gance as  he  had  done  in  Spanish. 

In  addition  to  these  instances  of  constancy  and 
fortitude  which  have  been  noticed,  we  must  not 
omit  to  mention  the  case  of  Maria  de  Bohorques.. 
She  was  one  of  those  remarkable  women  who  some- 
times become  distinguished  for  proficiency  in 
branches  of  learning  which  are  without  the  usual 
circle  of  female  studies.  The  natural  daughter  of 
one  of  the  highest  grandees  in  the  kingdom,  she 
had  been  educated  under  the  most  celebrated  masters, 
and  at  an  early  age  could  read  the  Latin  version  of 
the  Scriptures  and  the  Commentators.  Whilst  a 
pupil  of  Dr.  Egidio,  she  had  received  from  him  the 
elements  of  a  sound  scriptural  education,  which  pre- 


HER   TALENTS   AND    HEROISM.  173 

disposed  her  the  more  to  that  freedom  of  thought 
upon  matters  of  doctrine  which  subsequently  led  her 
to  examine  and  embrace  the  Lutheran  opinions. 
Egidio  used  to  say  that  "  none  could  discourse  with 
her  of  Divine  matters  (and  she  did  not  care  to  talk 
of  any  other)  without  being  made  both  wiser  and 
better  by  her."  She  was  not  twenty-one  years  of 
age  when  arrested  as  a  Lutheran ;  and  when  brought 
before  the  Inquisitors,  she  avowed  her  entire  belief 
in  the  doctrines  of  the  reformed  religion,  and  de- 
clared them  to  be  the  truths  of  the  Bible  which 
Luther  and  his  associates  had  freed  from  the  in- 
crustments  of  error  and  superstition.  On  being  put 
to  the  torture,  she  let  fall  some  expressions  which 
were  soon  after  made  the  foundation  of  a  charge 
against  her  sister  Juana,  but  refused  to  abjure  any 
of  the  opinions  she  had  embraced.  In  vain  was  it 
that  deputation  after  deputation  was  sent  to  per- 
suade her  to  recant ;  they  returned  each  time  with 
increased  admiration  of  the  extraordinary  learning 
and  talents  which  she  displayed  in  defence  of  the 
reformed  doctrines.  On  the  night  before  her  exe- 
cution, a  last  effort  was  made  to  induce  her  to  return 
to  the  Romish  Communion,  but  she  told  the  friars 
by  whom  it  was  made,  that  any  previous  doubts 
which  she  might  have  had  about  the  Lutheran  doc- 
trines were  now  removed,  since  their  opponents  had 


^174  OTHER   LADIES    OF   DISTINCTION. 

been  able  to  advance  no  argument  for  which  she 
had  not  been  prepared  with  a  solid  and  conclusive 
answer.  She  appeared  at  the  stake  with  a  cheerful 
countenance,  and  exhorted  her  fellow -sufferers  to 
bear  their  trial  with  hope  and  resignation.  When 
importuned  by  the  friars  to  confess  and  be  recon- 
ciled, she  turned  away,  remarking  that  the  time  for 
disputation  was  past,  and  that  the  few  minutes  she 
had  to  live  would  be  spent  in  meditating  on  the 
passion  and  death  of  Christ,  to  reanimate  the  faith 
by  which  she  was  to  be  justified  and  saved.  Pity 
for  her  youth,  and  admiration  of  her  surprising 
talents,  led  some  of  the  monks  who  stood  by  to 
make  one  more  effort  to  save  her ;  they  begged  her 
to  repeat  the  creed,  which  she  did  without  hesitation, 
but  immediately  began  to  explain  its  articles  accord- 
ing to  the  Lutheran  sense.  Her  exposition  was 
cut  short  by  a  signal  to  the  executioner,  who  placed 
the  fatal  collar  upon  her  neck,  and  in  an  instant  she 
had  ceased  to  breathe.  Her  body  was  then  thrown 
into  the  flames. 

Besides  Maria  de  Bohorques,  three  other  ladies  of 
distinction  suffered  death  on  this  occasion  :  Dona 
Isabella  de  Baena,  at  whose  house  the  Protestants  of 
Seville  had  been  accustomed  to  meet  for  worship; 
Dona  Maria  de  Vinces,  and  Dona  Maria  Cornel.  After 
describing  the  death-scenes  of  some  of  those  whom 


SECOND    AUTO    AT    SEVILLE.  175 

we  have  now  mentioned,  Dr.  Geddes  says,  "The 
blessed  saints  I  have  here  named,  though  they  were 
the  leaders,  were  for  numbers  but  a  small  part  of  that 
glorious  army  of  Spanish  Protestant  Martyrs  burnt 
at  this  time  by  the  Inquisition  ;  and  who,  for  the 
exemplary  piety  of  their  lives,  and  the  admirable 
patience  and  courage  wherewith  they  triumphed  over 
death,  in  the  most  terrible  of  all  its  shapes,  were 
nothing  inferior  to  the  martyrs  of  any  other  nation 
or  age."  * 

Little  more  than  a  year  was  suffered  to  elapse 
before  the  Inquisitors  of  Seville  thought  another 
auto  necessary  to  clear  the  religious  atmosphere  of 
the  noxious  vapours  of  heresy,  and  for  this  purpose 
once  more  prepared  the  machinery  of  death.  This 
second  grand  auto-da-fe  took  place  on  the  22nd  of 
December,  1560.  Fourteen  individuals  were  burned 
in  person,  and  three  in  eflSgy ;  thirty-four  were  sub- 
jected to  penances,  and  the  reconciliation  of  three 
others  was  read  before  the  commencement  of  the 
ceremonies.  The  effigies  were  those  of  Egidio,  Con- 
stantine  Ponce,  and  Juan  Perez. 

Julian  Hernandez,  who  had  advanced  the  reformed 
cause  so  much  by  importing  Bibles  into  the  Penin- 
sula, was  one  of  those  who  sealed  their  fidelity  by 
their  death.  During  his  imprisonment  he  bore  the 
*  Miscellaneous  Tracts,  vol.  i.  p.  473. 


176  TWO   ENGLISHMEN   BURNED. 

torture,  to  which  he  was  frequently  subjected,  with 
a  fortitude  far  above  his  physical  strength,  and 
remained  faithful  to  the  cause  which  he  had  espoused. 
When  brought  to  the  place  of  execution,  he  turned 
to  his  fellow-prisoners,  and  exhorted  them  not  to 
give  way,  saying,  "this  is  the  hour  in  which  we 
must  show  ourselves  valiant  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Let  us  now  bear  faithful  testimony  to  his  truth 
before  men,  and  within  a  few  hours  we  shall  receive 
the  testimony  of  his  approbation  before  angels,  and 
triumph  with  him  in  heaven."  When  the  pile  was 
lighted,  he  showed  no  symptoms  of  fear,  but  called 
upon  the  executioners  to  heap  up  the  wood  around 
him.  The  guards  cut  short  his  sufferings  by  plunging 
their  lances  into  his  half-burnt  body. 

Three  foreigners,  of  whom  two  were  Englishmen, 
were  amongst  the  sufferers  on  this  occasion^  One 
of  the  Englishmen  was  named  William  Burton ;  he 
was  a  London  merchant,  and  had  visited  Spain  with 
a  vessel  laden  with  goods,  with  which  he  intended 
trading  at  various  Spanish  ports.  The  only  offence 
of  which  he  had  been  guilty,  was  that  of  speaking 
too  freely  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  superstitions  of 
the  country.  On  the  case  of  this  sufferer  the  late 
secretary  of  the  Holy  Office  remarks, — "Let  it  be 
granted,  that  Burton  was  guilty  of  an  imprudence, 
by  posting  up  his  religious  sentiments  at  San  Lucar 


THE    CASE    OF    WILLIAM    BURTON.  177 

de  Barrameda,  and  at  Seville,  in  contempt  of  the 
faith  of  the  Spaniards ;  it  is  no  less  true  that  both 
charity  and  justice  required,  that  in  the  case  of  a 
stranger  who  had  not  fixed  his  abode  in  Spain,  they 
should  have  contented  themselves  with  warning  him 
to  abstain  from  all  marks  of  disrespect  to  the  religion 
and  laws  of  the  country,  and  threatening  him  with 
punishment  if  he  repeated  the  offence.  The  Holy 
Office  had  nothing  to  do  with  his  private  sentiments  ; 
having  been  established,  not  for  strangers,  but  solely 
for  the  people  of  Spain." 

Not  content  with  the  condemnation  of  Burton, 
they  seized  his  vessel,  and  were  about  to  appropriate 
its  valuable  cargo.  Information,  however,  had  been 
privately  sent  to  England  respecting  the  arrest  of 
Burton,  and  the  other  merchants,  to  whom  the  ship 
in  part  belonged,  immediately  despatched  a  person 
named  John  Frampton,  to  demand  the  restitution  of 
their  property.  Finding  that  the  documents  which 
he  bore  furnished  unanswerable  proofs  of  the  justice 
of  his  claims,  they  managed  to  delay  the  process  as 
long  as  possible,  but  at  last,  when  they  could  no 
longer  equivocate,  they  had  recourse  to  a  charge  of 
heresy,  on  which  Frampton  was  arrested,  and  thrown 
into  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition.  He  appeared 
at  this  auto-da-fe  amongst  the  penitents,  and  was 

N 


178  MAEIA    GOMEZ. 

subsequently  imprisoned  for  a  year,  with  loss  of  the 
property  which  he  had  been  sent  to  recover. 

On  this  additional  act  of  cruelty  and  gross  in- 
justice, Llorente  remarks  : — "  This  is  a  remarkable 
proof  of  the  mischief  produced  by  the  secresy  of  the 
Inquisitorial  proceedings.  If  the  affair  of  John 
Fronton  [Frampton]  had  been  made  public,  any 
lawyer  would  have  shown  the  nullity  and  falsehood 
of  the  inst't'uction.  Yet  there  are  Englishmen  who 
defend  the  tribunal  of  the  Holy  Office  as  a  useful 
institution,  and  I  have  heard  an  English  Catholic 
priest  speak  in  its  defence." 

Two  other  foreigners  shared  the  fate  of  Burton. 
One  of  them  was  William  Brook,  a  Southampton 
sailor,  who  had  been  condemned  for  an  offence 
similar  to  that  alleged  against  his  countryman ;  the 
other  was  a  Frenchman,  of  Bayonne,  named  Fabi- 
anne,  who  was  likewise  a  merchant. 

The  reader  will  remember  the  case  of  Maria 
Gomez,  whose  denunciation  of  her  fellow-Protestants 
during  an  attack  of  mental  derangement,  had  nearly 
brought  ruin  upon  the  reformed  cause  in  Seville. 
After  her  recovery,  she  had  been  received  back  into 
Protestant  fellowship,  and  continued  till  the  time  of 
the  general  arrest,  a  consistent  and  useful  member 
of  the  Lutheran  church.  At  the  period  mentioned, 
she  and  four  female  relatives  fell  into  the  hands  of 


GASPARD   DE   BENAVICES.  179 

the  Inquisition:  a  three  years'  imprisonment  was 
unable  to  shake  her  constancy,  and  she  now  appeared 
on  the  scaffold,  in  company  with  her  relatives, 
evincing  a  composure  of  mind  which  proved  the 
sincerity  and  earnestness  of  her  religious  convic- 
tions. 

Amongst  the  penitents  was  one  Gaspard  de  Bena- 
vides,  an  alcalde  of  the  Inquisition  at  Seville. 
There  was  hardly  any  species  of  cruelty  or  injustice 
of  which  this  wretch  had  not  been  guilty  towards 
the  prisoners.  He  had  kept  up  a  system  of  pecu- 
lation, by  which  he  had  deprived  them  of  part  of 
their  scanty  allowance  of  provisions,  which  he  after- 
wards sold  them  at  an  exorbitant  price.  If  any  of 
them  ventured  to  complain,  he  removed  them  to  a 
dark  and  filthy  dungeon,  where  he  confined  them  for 
a  fortnight  at  a  time,  to  punish  them  for  murmur- 
ing. His  cruelties  at  last  led  to  a  riot,  which  ended 
in  the  discovery  of  his  guilt.  Yet,  he  was  merely 
charged  with  "having  failed  in  zeal  and  attention 
to  his  charge ; "  and  was  deprived  of  his  situation, 
condemned  to  appear  at  the  auto  with  a  torch 
in  his  hand,  and  to  be  banished  from  Seville  j  whilst 
Maria  Gonzalez,  his  servant,  was  condemned  to 
receive  two  hundred  stripes,  and  to  be  banished  for 
ten  years,  because  she  had  treated  the  prisoners  with 
kindness,  and   permitted  them  occasionally  to   see 


180  JUANA    DE    BOHORQUES. 

and  converse  with  each  other.     Such  was  another 
specimen  of  Inquisitorial  justice  ! 

The  case  of  Dona  Juana  de  Bohorques  affords 
another  striking  illustration  of  their  cold  and  reck- 
less barbarity.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Don  Pedro 
Garcia  de  Xeres  y  Bohorques,  and  wife  of  Don 
Francisco  de  Vargas,  the  lord  Higuera.  The  words 
which  had  fallen  from  her  sister  Maria  while  under 
torture,  had  been  sufficient  to  cause  her  arrest.  She 
was  at  that  time  in  the  sixth  month  of  her  preg- 
nancy, and  was  consequently  treated  with  somewhat 
less  severity  than  usual,  though  subjected  to  all  the 
trying  examinations  of  an  ordinary  heretic.  The 
partial  forbearance  which  had  been  exercised  towards 
her,  ceased  immediately  after  her  delivery.  Only 
eight  days  were  allowed  to  pass,  till  her  infant  was 
taken  from  her,  and  she  was  subjected  to  all  the 
horrors  of  the  torture-chamber.  The  cords  that 
bound  her  to  the  wheel  cut  her  feeble  limbs  to  the 
bone,  and  in  the  convulsions  brought  on  by  the 
dreadful  agonies  which  she  endured,  her  whole  frame 
was  bruised  and  lacerated.  Thus  mutilated,  she 
was  carried  back  to  her  dungeon  in  a  dying  state, 
and  expired  a  few  days  after.  But  the  worst  is 
hardly  told.  This  martyred  victim  of  Inquisitorial 
injustice  and  barbarity  was  publicly  declared,  at  this 
auto-da-fe.,  to  have  been  innocent  of  the  charges  for 


TWELVE    AUTOS    ANNUALLY.  181 

which  she  had  suffered  such  inhuman  treatment ! 
"Well  might  the  author  of  the  Annals — himself  a 
Catholic — exclaim,  "Under  what  an  overwhelming 
responsibility  will  these  monsters  appear  before  the 
tribunal  of  the  Almighty  !  " 

Such  is  a  brief  description  of  the  two  autos-da-fe 
which  were  celebrated  in  Seville.  A  third  was 
solemnized  in  the  same  city  on  the  10th  of  July, 
1563,  but  it  was  inferior  to  the  two  former,  both 
as  regarded  the  number  of  prisoners  brought  for- 
ward, and  in  the  pomp  attending  its  celebration. 
Six  individuals  only  perished  on  that  occasion. 

But  Valladolid  and  Seville  were  not  the  only 
cities  whose  prisons  sent  forth  sufferers  for  the  truth. 
One  aiuto,  at  least,  took  place  annually  in  each  of  the 
twelve  provincial  cities  in  which  tribunals  of  the 
Inquisition  were  established,  from  1560  to  1570. 
On  the  25th  of  February,  1560,  the  Inquisitors  of 
Toledo  celebrated  an  auto-da-fe  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  their  young  queen,  Elizabeth  de  Valois, 
daughter  of  Henry  II.  of  France.  To  enhance  the 
solemnity  of  the  occasion,  a  general  assembly  of  the 
Cortes  of  the  kingdom  was  held  there  at  the  same 
time,  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Don  Carlos, 
the  heir-apparent ;  so  that  this  auto,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  number  of  victims,  was  as  solemn  as 
any   of  those   in  Valladolid.     Amongst  those  who 


183  AUTOS   AT   TOLEDO. 

suffered  death  was  one  of  the  servants  of  the  Duke 
of  Brunswick,  whom  his  master  had  delivered  up  to 
the  Inquisition,  to  testify  his  hatred  of  the  reformed 
cause,  and  to  strike  terror  into  the  minds  of  the 
Germans,  Flemings,  and  French,  who  were  present, 
and  were  strongly  suspected  of  being  favourable  to 
the  reformed  religion. 

In  1561  another  auto-(ia-/e  was  celebrated  in  the 
same  city  :  four  Lutherans  were  burned,  and  eigh- 
teen reconciled ;  amongst  the  latter  was  one  of  the 
king's  pages,  a  native  of  Brussels,  named  Don  Charles 
Estrect,  but  the  young  queen  Elizabeth  procured  his 
exemption  from  the  penance  to  which  he  was  con- 
demned. 

On  the  17th  of  June,  1565,  an  auto  of  forty-five 
persons  was  celebrated  by  the  same  Inquisition : 
eleven  were  burned,  and  thirty-four  condemned  to 
penances.  The  greater  number  of  the  prisoners  on 
this  occasion  were  Jews  :  amongst  those  designated 
as  Protestants,  some  were  called  Lutherans,  others 
the  faithful,  whilst  a  third  class  were  termed  ffu- 
guenaos,  or  Huguenots. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  1571  that  any  person  of 
distinction  suffered  at  Toledo.  In  that  year  an  auto- 
da-fe  was  celebrated,  in  which  two  individuals  were 
burned  alive,  and  three  in  effigy,  whilst  thirty-one 
were  condemned  to  undergo  severe  penances.     One 


DR.    SIGISMOND   ARCHEL.  183 

of  the  two  who  perished  in  the  flames  was  Doctor 
Sigismond  Archel,  a  native  of  Cagliari,  in  Sardinia. 
He  had  been  arrested  in  Madrid  in  1562,  as  a  dog- 
matizing Lutheran,  and  after  remaining  for  several 
years  in  the  prisons  of  Toledo,  contrived  to  make 
liis  escape ;  but  descriptions  of  his  person  having 
been  sent  to  all  parts  of  the  frontier,  he  was  again 
arrested,  and  delivered  once  more  into  the  hands  of 
his  judges.  At  his  trial  he  persisted  in  denying  the 
facts  imputed,  until  the  publication  of  the  evidence, 
when  he  confessed,  but  maintained,  that  so  far  from 
being  a  heretic,  he  was  a  better  Catholic  than  the 
Papists.  He  derided  the  ignorance  of  the  priests 
who  were  sent  to  convert  him,  in  consequence  of 
which  he  was  gagged  until  fastened  to  the  stake ; 
and  the  archefs,  enraged  by  the  firmness  with  which 
he  endured  the  flames,  pierced  his  body  with  their 
lances  whilst  the  executioners  were  piling  up  fresh 
wood  around  the  stake. 

But  those  of  the  provincial  tribunals  which  took 
the  most  prominent  part  in  the  suppression  of  the 
Reformation  were  the  Inquisitions  of  Saragossa, 
Logrono,  and  Barcelona.  The  greater  part  of  the 
victims  who  perished  in  the  first-mentioned  of  these 
cities  were  Huguenots,  who  had  quitted  Beam,  and 
settled  as  merchants  in  Saragossa,  Huesca,  Barbastro, 
and  other   cities.      The  progress  which  their  Cal- 


184  EXPORTATION    OP    HORSES 

vinistic  doctrines  had  made  in  the  Peninsula  is 
proved  by  an  ordinance  of  the  Supreme  Council, 
which  says,  that  "  Don  Luis  de  Benegas,  the  Spanish 
ambassador  at  Vienna,  informed  the  Inquisitor-Gene- 
ral, on  the  14th  of  April,  1568,  that  he  had  learned 
from  particular  reports  that  the  Calvinists  congra- 
tulated each  other  on  the  peace  signed  between 
France  and  Spain,  and  that  they  hoped  that  their 
religion  would  make  as  much  progress  in  Spain  as 
in  England,  Flanders,  and  other  countries,  because 
the  great  numbers  of  Spaniards  who  had  secretly 
adopted  it  might  easily  hold  communication  with 
the  Protestants  of  Beam,  through  Aragon."  * 

These,  and  other  reports,  induced  the  Council  to 
recommend  additional  vigilance  to  the  Inquisitors 
in  the  eastern  provinces,  especially  in  .searching  for 
and  seizing  heretical  books,  of  which  large  numbers 
were  smuggled  through  the  passes  of  the  Pyrenees. 
In  addition  to  these  duties,  it  was  made  the  duty 
of  these  eastern  tribunals  to  prevent  the  exportation 
of  horses  from  Spain.  Since  the  reign  of  Alphonso 
XI.,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  this  had  been  pro- 
hibited, on  pain  of  death  and  confiscation ;  but  for 
a  long  time  the  law  had  become  practically  obsolete. 
But  when  the  civil  wars  broke  out  between  the 
Catholics  and  Protestants  in  France,  Philip,  finding 
*  Llorente,  His.  Inquis.  p.  271. 


FORBIDDEN   BY   PHILIP.  185 

that  Spanish  horses  were  largely  employed  by  the 
latter,  obtained  a  bull  from  the  Pope,  which  de- 
clared all  to  be  suspected  of  heresy  who  should 
furnish  horses,  arms,  or  other  instruments  of  war, 
to  the  heretics.  By  the  provisions  of  the  bull,  he 
was  authorized  to  commission  the  Inquisitions  of 
Logrono,  Saragossa,  and  Barcelona,  to  take  cogni- 
zance of  all  such  offences.  Besides  this,  in  1569, 
the  Council  of  the  Supreme  added  a  clause  to  the 
annual  edict  of  denunciations,  which  obliged  every 
Spanish  Catholic  Christian  to  denounce  any  who 
should  violate  the  revived  law. 

At  Logrono  the  agents  of  the  Holy  Office  were 
not  less  active  than  those  in  Saragossa,  in  their 
efforts  to  suppress  the  new  doctrines.  The  labours 
of  De  Soso  had  been  productive  of  much  good ; 
he  had  left  many  behind  him  who  carried  on  the 
work  with  vigour  and  success,  notwithstanding  the 
utmost  vigilance  of  the  Inquisitors.  Being  in- 
formed of  this,  the  Council  of  the  Supreme  wrote 
to  its  agents  in  Logrono,  in  1568,  enjoining  them  to 
redouble  their  watchfulness,  inasmuch  as  Don  Diego 
de  Guzman,  the  ambassador  to  England,  had  written 
that  the  Protestants  of  that  country  boasted  that 
their  doctrines  were  gaining  ground  in  Spain, 
especially  in  Navarre. 

The  largest  number  of  prisoners  brought  forward 


186  EXTINCTION    OF    PROTESTANTISM 

at  this  tribunal,  appeared  at  the  annual  auto-da-fe 
in  1593,  when  forty-nine  persons  were  condemned, 
five  to  be  burned  alive,  and  the  rest  to  undergo 
various  kinds  of  penance. 

In  Granada  and  Valencia,  several  Protestants 
suffered  death,  although  the  majority  of  those  who 
appeared  at  the  autos  in  those  cities  were  Jews  or 
Mahometans.  At  the  grand  auto-da-fe  which  was 
celebrated  in  Granada  on  the  27th  of  May,  1593, 
five  individuals  were  burned  in  person,  and  five  in 
effigy,  whilst  eighty-seven  were  condemned  to  pen- 
ances. The  only  Protestant  of  distinction  amongst 
these  was  Dona  Inez  Alvarez,  the  wife  of  Thomas 
Martinez,  alguazil  to  the  Royal  Chancery.  But  the 
suppression  of  Protestantism  in  Spain  had  been 
virtually  accomplished  long  before  this.  The  av^s 
which  were  celebrated  by  the  various  tribunals 
throughout  the  country  from  1560  to  1570,  had 
removed  all  the  friends  of  the  Reformation,  whose 
influence  or  personal  effort  had  been  attended  by 
such  hopeful  results,  and  left  only  a  few  unimpor- 
tant and  secret  adherents  to  the  Lutheran  faith. 
Enough,  however,  has  been  shown  to  prove  that  the 
extinction  of  Spanish  Protestantism  was  not  caused 
by  the  imprudence  or  cowardice  of  its  leading 
friends.  The  painful  history  of  the  cruelties  in- 
flicted on  the  friends  of  the  reformed  cause  in  the 


AND    OF    RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY.  187 

Peninsula,  furnishes  instances  of  Christian  en- 
lightenment and  heroism  hardly  surpassed  by  any 
to  be  met  with  in  the  annals  of  the  Christian 
Church.  If  ardent  love  for  the  truth,  and  patient 
endurance  of  suffering  in  its  defence,  had  been  able 
to  accomplish  the  religious  emancipation  of  Spain, 
the  thick  and  pestilential  vapours  of  Popery  would, 
long  ere  now,  have  been  swept  away,  and  the  bless- 
ings of  religious  and  civil  liberty,  which  the  Re- 
formation brought  to  other  lands,  would  now  be 
enjoyed  by  her  people. 


188  TRIUMPH    OF   THE   INQUISITION. 


^^tt^  $ird\. 


SPAIN,    SINCE    THE    REFORMATION. 

With  the  ten  years'  persecutions,  from  1560  to 
1570,  which  we  have  briefly  noticed  in  the  last  two 
chapters,  the  history  of  Spanish  Protestantism, 
strictly  speaking,  ends.  Only  a  few  scattered  ad- 
herents to  the  reformed  faith  escaped ;  and  they 
either  quietly  lapsed  back  into  the  Eomish  com- 
munion, or  cherished  in  secret  sentiments  which  it 
would  have  been  death  openly  to  maintain. 

This  triumph  of  the  Inquisition,  and  its  conse- 
quent suppression  of  the  Keformation,  may  be  dated 
from  the  year  1570.  But  few  Protestants,  and  the 
majority  of  those  foreigners,  appeared  at  the  autos 
which  were  celebrated  subsequently  to  that  time. 
Thus,  in  the  grand   auto-da-fe,  which  was  held  in 


SUBSEQUENT   AUTOS.  189 

Cuenga,  in  1654,  only  one  was  charged  with 
Lutheranism,  whilst  fifty-seven  persons  were  con- 
demned to  various  punishments.  Again,  in  that 
which  was  celebrated  twenty-six  years  later,  in  1680, 
in  Madrid,  in  honour  of  the  marriage  of  Don 
Carlos  II.  with  Marie  Louise  de  Bourbon,  niece  of 
Louis  XIV.  of  France,  the  name  of  but  one  Pro- 
testant appeared  on  the  list  of  the  prisoners  who 
were  present.  It  was  that  of  Marcos  de  Legura,  a 
native  of  Villa  de  Ubrique,  in  Granada,  who  had 
formerly  been  arrested  on  suspicion  of  heresy,  and 
been  reconciled  by  the  Inquisitors  of  Llerena,  but 
having  subsequently  embraced  his  former  opinions, 
he  was  again  thrown  into  prison,  where  he  died  in  the 
Lutheran  faith.  His  effigy  and  tones  were  publicly 
burned  on  this  occasion. 

In  the  cmtos  solemnized  subsequently  to  the  sup- 
pression of  the  reformed  doctrines,  the  victims  were, 
with  the  exceptions  mentioned,  and  a  few  others, 
persons  charged  with  Judaism,  witchcraft,  bigamy, 
blasphemy,  and  some  other  offences,  in  no  way  con- 
nected with  Lutheranism.  The  Inquisition  had  done 
its  diabolic  work  too  thoroughly,  to  leave  much,  if 
any,  of  the  heretical  seed  in  the  orthodox  soil  of 
Spain,  and  (in  the  words  of  a  writer  already  quoted), 
"  cursed  with  success  in  its  war  against  the  truth, 
had  from  thenceforward  to  content  itself  with  the 


190  DEATH    OF    PHILIP. 

meaner  triumphs  of  iniquity,  and  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  ruin  and  misery  of  men  whom  it  could  never 
so  cordially  hate  as  the  promoters  of  religious 
freedom."* 

These  persecutions,  however,  require  no  record 
here;  we  have  seen  enough  of  its  atrocities  in 
connection  with  our  own  subject.  It  had  effectually 
answered  the  design  of  its  institution,  and  in  doing 
so,  established  for  itself  a  claim  upon  the  undying 
abhorrence  of  all  future  ages.  It  had  trampled  in 
the  dust  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  the 
Spanish  nation,  and  set  up  a  despotism,  whose  effects 
are  yet  visible  in  the  spiritual  ignorance  and  political 
degradation  of  a  country  whose  natural  advantages 
fit  her  for  the  first  rank  of  European  nations.  Spain 
was  thrown  back  into  her  former  gloom,  and  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  the  priestly  usurpation  which 
was  then  more  firmly  established  than  before. 

For  the  following  two  centuries  and  a  half,  her 
religious  history  presents  nothing  but  a  painful 
picture  of  abject  submission  to  the  irrational  dogmas 
and  debasing  Superstitions  of  the  Church  of  Ronie — 
a  long  night  of  darkness,  broken  in  upon  by  no  ray 
of  light. 

Philip  II.  died  on  the  13th  of  September,  1598, 
and  left  the  crown   to  his  son,  Philip  III.,   whose 

*  Stebbing's  History  of  the  Keformation. 


DON    MIGUEL   SOLANO.  191 

education  had  fitted  him  more  for  the  mummeries 
of  a  monkish  cell,  than  the  government  of  a  great 
kingdom.  As  the  passive  tool  of  the  priests,  he 
followed  up,  at  their  bidding,  the  measure's  of  his 
father,  by  others  which  were  calculated  effectually  to 
prevent  the  resuscitation  of  the  reforming  spirit ; 
and  thus  consummated  the  spiritual  bondage  of  his 
people.  The  administration  of  his  successors  tended 
still  further  to  reduce  the  nation  to  its  present 
powerless  and  degraded  condition.  Nor  did  the 
accession  of  the  house  of  Bourbon,  in  the  person 
of  the  fifth  Philip,  in  1700,  bring  with  it  any  increase 
to  the  liberties  of  the  Spanish  people.  The  same 
old  incubus  of  Popery,  with  all  its  resultant  evils, 
hung  smotheringly  upon  them  still. 

The  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  brought 
with  it  one  more  instance  of  Inquisitorial  intolerance 
and  cruelty — the  last  we  have  to  record  in  its  crim- 
soned history.  Don  Miguel  Juan  Antonio  Solano 
was  a  native  of  Verdun,  in  Aragon,  and  vicar  of 
Esco,  in  the  diocese  of  Jaca.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
inventive  powers  of  mind,  and  had  acquired  an  ex- 
tensive knowledge  of  mathematics.  His  mechanical 
inventions  were  chiefly  employed  for  the  benefit  of 
his  parishioners,  by  draining  their  land  and  improving 
their  agricultural  implements.  A  tedious  and  pain- 
ful illness,  however,  forced  him  to  withdraw  from  his 


192      AN  ARREST    IN   THE    PRESENT    CENTURY, 

active  and  benevolent  pursuits,  and  led  him  to  devote 
more  of  his  time  to  the  study  of  theology.  In  his 
retirement,  the  Bible  was  his  chief  text-book,  and  by 
a  careful  and  impartial  study  of  its  contents,  he  was 
led  to  form  for  himself  a  system  of  doctrine  which 
agreed  in  all  its  main  points  with  the  Lutheran  creed. 
Having  thus  embraced  doctrinal  views  opposed  to 
the  established  faith,  his  candid  and  honest  mind 
would  not  permit  him  to  conceal  the  change.  He 
drew  up  a  lengthened  statement  of  his  new  opinions, 
and  submitted  them  to  his  diocesan ;  but,  receiving 
no  answer,  he  laid  them  before  the  theological  faculty 
of  Saragossa.  His  speedy  arrest  was  the  first  indi- 
cation which  he  received,  of  what  was  to  follow  the 
avowal  of  his  heterodox  sentiments.  Escaping,  by 
the  help  of  some  friends,  from  the  Inquisitorial  dun- 
geons of  Saragossa,  he  succeeded  in  reaching  Oleron, 
a  town  on  the  French  border ;  but  an  overweening 
sense  of  duty  soon  led  him  to  return,  and  surrender 
himself  into  the  hands  of  the  Inquisition.  When 
brought  before  the  judges,  he  openly  avowed  the 
sentiments  which  he  had  embraced,  and  denied  that 
they  were  unsound,  inasmuch  as  they  were  the  plain 
teachings  of  the  inspired  volume.  Such  a  defence 
weighed  but  little  before  such  a  tribunal.  The 
Inquisitor-General,  Arce,  was  unwilling  that  his 
period  of  office  should  be  signalized  by  an  execu- 


AND    DEATH    OF   THE   VICTIM.  193 

tion ;  but  there  was  no  alternative ;  for  the  offence 
of  which  Solano  confessed  himself  guilty,  the  Inqui- 
sitorial statutes  provided  no  punishment  but  death. 
Every  effort  was  employed  to  induce  the  prisoner  to 
recant,  but  in  vain.     A  second  examination  of  the 
witnesses  was   held,  but  nothing  could  be  elicited 
which  would  justify  the  infliction  of  a  lighter  punish- 
ment.    A   last   effort   was   made   to  save   him,  by 
endeavouring  to  establish  his  insanity,  but  no  posi- 
tive evidence  could  be  obtained.  But  a  fever,  brought 
on  by  his  confinement,  spared  the  Holy  Office  a  com- 
promise or  the  infliction  of  a  punishment  which  had 
become  so  unusual.     During  his  illness,  every  effort 
was  redoubled  to  procure  a  recantation  of  the  ob- 
noxious views,  but  with  no  better  result  than  before. 
A  short  time  before  his  death,  the  attendant  phy- 
sician warned  him  of  his  danger,  and  exhorted  him 
to  be  reconciled  to  the  Church  before  it  was  too  late. 
His  dying  words,  in  reply,  were,  "  I  am  in  the  hands 
of  God,  and  have  nothing  more  to  do."     Thus  died 
the  vicar  of  Esco,  in  1805.     His  body  was  refused 
ecclesiastical  burial,  and  was  privately  interred  within 
the  grounds  of  the  Inquisition,  near  the  banks  of  the 
Ebro.     His  death  stopped  all  further  proceedings, 
and  saved  the  Council  of  the  Supreme  the  unwelcome 
necessity  of  burning  him  in  eSigj. 

During  the  long  series  of  wars  in  which  Spain 
o 


194  ABOLITION    OF   THE   INQUISITION, 

was  engaged,  during  the  eighteenth  and  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  centuries,  alternately  with 
England  and  France,  the  national  attention  was  too 
much  occupied  by  military  affairs  to  allow  education 
or  religion  to  be  much  thought  of.  The  Holy  Office 
was  alike  the  censor  of  both  ;  and  under  its  wither- 
ing administration  the  national  literature,  once  so 
rich,  languished  and  declined ;  whilst  religion  sunk 
into  the  grossest  superstition,  or  gave  place  to  the 
indifference  of  infidelity,  followed  by  an  almost 
universal  corruption  of  the  nation's  morals.  In 
1813,  after  Ferdinand  YII.  had  been  entrapped  at 
Bayonne  by  Bonaparte,  the  Cortes  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge his  forced  transfer  of  the  Spanish  crown, 
and  assumed  the  supreme  government.  During 
their  shortlived  power,  the  Inquisition  was  abolished, 
many  important  ecclesiastical  reforms  were  accom- 
plished, the  monastic  orders  were  suppressed,  and 
their  revenues  appropriated  by  the  State. 

Whatever  beneficial  results  these  measures  might 
have  led  to,  were  prevented  by  the  return  of  Fer- 
dinand to  the  throne  in  the  following  year.  The 
Holy  Office  was  restored,  and  the  old  regime,  with 
all  its  inherent  evils,  was  once  more  established. 
During  the  remainder  of  his  reign,  till  1833,  Spain 
continued  to  enjoy  the  unenviable  distinction,  which 
has  long  been  her  own,  of  presenting  to  the  world 


AND    COMING   EMANCIPATION   OF   SPAIN.         195 

an  exemplification  of  the  worst  forms  and  most 
fatal  results  of  dominant  Popery. 

But  the  days  of  the  Inquisition  were  numbered. 
The  offspring  of  a  semi-barbarous  age,  it  could  no 
longer  resist  those  influences  which  had  emancipated 
most  of  the  other  nations  of  Europe  from  the 
thraldom  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  which 
priestcraft  had  managed  to  set  up  during  the  dreary 
night  of  the  Middle  Ages.  They  could  no  longer 
be  shut  out  from  Spain. 

Human  progress  and  modern  enlightenment  were 
stronger  than  the  Inquisition ;  the  unequal  contest 
at  last  came  to  an  end.  Buttressed  round,  though 
it  was,  by  the  memories  of  its  former  power,  that 
bulwark  of  Popish  domination  in  Spain,  reared  on 
the  ashes  of  its  myriad  victims,  was  swept  away,  in 
1834,  by  the  onward  and  resistless  tide  j  and  the 
minor  barriers  against  light  and  knowledge  with 
which  its  place  had  been  vainly  supplied,  are  already 
crumbling  before  the  same  mighty  power.  Since 
then,  symptoms  of  Spain's  coming  emancipation 
— civil  and  religious — are  growing  both  in  clearness 
and  in  number.  The  fabric  of  papal  tyranny  totters 
on  its  narrowing  base.  The  spirit  of  a  long- 
oppressed  nation  is  showing  signs  of  revival,  and 
already  is  the  herald-star  of  Spanish  liberty  appear- 
ing   on  the  dark  horizon.      Vainly  will  the  thick 


196       PUBLIC  AUTOS  SUCCEEDED  BY 

clouds  of  Popery  combine  their  blackness  to  shut 
out  the  messenger  of  hope ;  a  mightier  power  sends 
it  forth,  and  will  consummate  the  freedom  whose 
advent  it  tells  of. 

Since  the  abolition  of  the  Holy  Office,  a  spirit  of 
religious  inquiry,  as  yet  but  badly  provided  for,  has 
been  gradually  showing  itself,  from  which  the 
Christian  philanthropist  may  confidently  augur  the 
happiest  results.  So  long  as  that  diabolical  engine 
of  civil  and  religious  tyranny  continued  to  exist,  it 
had  exerted  the  same  repressive  influence  upon  the 
national  mind,  almost  as  badly  during  the  last  years 
of  its  reign,  as  whilst  immolating  its  victims  on  its 
blazing  pyres,  in  the  time  of  the  second  Philip.  For 
though  the  last  victim  whom  it  consigned  to  the 
flames  perished  in  1781,*  we  must  not  infer  from 
that  fact  that  the  practice  of  its  secret  barbarities  had 
been  proportionately  lessened.  Its  dungeons  were 
peopled  with  the  wretched  objects  of  its  vengeance 
to  the  last,  and  its  torture-chambers  echoed  the 
groans  of  the  agonized  and    the  dying  up  till  the 

*  "  I  myself,"  says  Blanco  White,  "  saw  the  pile  on  which 
the  last  victim  was  sacrificed  to  Roman  infallibility.  It  was 
an  unhappy  woman,  whom  the  Inquisition  of  Seville  com- 
mitted to  the  flames,  under  the  charge  of  heresy,  about  forty 
years  ago.  She  perished  on  the  spot  where  thousands  had 
met  the  same  fate." — Practical  and  Internal  Evidence  against 
Catholicism,  p.  122. 


SECRET   MURDER.  197 

time  of  its  suppression.  If  the  fires  of  the  auto  had 
ceased  to  be  fed  with  human  fuel,  their  work  was 
done  by  the  secret  machinery  of  death.*  It  did  not 
suffer  the  terror  which  its  early  cruelties  had  inspired 
to  grow  less,  but  ever  and  anon,  for  the  long  ages  we 
have  mentioned,  maintained,  with  unabated  vigour, 
the  spiritual  bondage  of  the  Spanish  people  ;  till 
an  indignant    nation,    roused    and  strengthened  by 

*  "The  following  fact,"  says  Llorente,  "shows  that  the 
Inquisitors  of  our  own  days  do  not  fall  below  the  standard 

of  those  who  followed  the  fanatic  Torquemada.      was 

present  when  the  Inquisition  was  thrown  open,  in  1820,  by 
the  orders  of  the  Cortes  of  Madrid.  Twenty-one  prisoners 
were  found  in  it,  not  one  of  whom  knew  the  city  in  which 
he  was  :  some  had  been  confined  three  years,  some  a  longer 
period,  and  not  one  knew  perfectly  the  nature  of  the  crime 
of  which  he  was  accused.  One  of  these  prisoners  had  been 
condemned,  and  was  to  have  suffered  on  the  following  day. 
His  punishment  was  to  be  death  by  the  pendulum.  The 
method  of  thus  destroying  the  victim  we.s  as  follows : — The 
condemned  is  fastened  in  a  groove,  upon  a  table,  on  his 
back;  suspended  above  him  is  a  pendulum,  the  edge  of 
which  is  sharp,  and  is  so  constructed,  as  to  become  longer 
with  every  movement.  The  wretch  sees  this  implement  of 
destruction  swinging  to  and  fro  above  him,  and  every 
moment  the  keen  edge  approaching  nearer  and  nearer.  At 
length,  it  cuts  the  skin  of  his  nose,  and  gradually  cuts  on, 
until  life  is  extinct.  It  may  be  doubted  if  the  Holy  Office, 
in  its  mercy,  ever  invented  a  more  humane  and  rapid  method 
of  exterminating  heresy,  or  ensuring  confiscation.  This,  let 
it  be  remembered,  was  a  punishment  of  the  Secret  Tribunal, 
A.D.  1820  !  !  !  "—Preface  to  Us  History,  pp.  19,  20. 


198  GEORGE    BORROW, 

influences  from  without,  burst  from  the  iron  bands 
which  swathed  it,  and  would  submit  to  the  crushing 
yoke  no  longer.  But  that  long  despotism  had 
paralyzed  the  Spanish  mind,  and  deadened  that 
regard  for  religion  which  had  characterized  Spain 
above  most  of  the  other  Continental  nations.  From 
that  paralysis,  however,  it  has  begun  to  show  signs 
of  recovery.  Light,  though  feeble  as  yet,  has  dawned 
upon  the  Peninsula  :  some  effort  has  been  put  forth 
by  this  country  to  open  up  to  it  the  springs  of 
eternal  truth. 

In  1835,  Mr.  George  Borrow  went  to  Spain,  as 
the  agent  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society, 
for  the  purpose  of  printing  and  circulating  the  Scrip- 
tures. After  some  difficulty,  he  gained  the  necessary 
permission  from  Isturitz,  who  was  then  at  the  head 
of  affairs,  and  printed,  at  Madrid,  an  edition  of  five 
thousand  New  Testaments.  The  version  thus  pub- 
lished was  that  made  many  years  before,  by  Filipe 
Scio,  confessor  of  Ferdinand  the  Seventh.  The  only 
edition  of  it  which  had  been  previously  printed  was 
so  encumbered  by  notes  and  commentaries,  as  to  be 
unfitted  for  general  circulation.  In  the  reprint, 
these  were  omitted,  and  the  inspired  word  was  sent 
forth,  without  note  or  comment,  to  disseminate  its 
saving  truths  through  the  darkened  land. 

The  measures  adopted  by  Mr.  Borrow  to  secure 


AND   THE    BIBLE    IN   SPAIN.  199 

the  circulation,  may  be  best  described  in  his  own 
words  : — "  I  had  determined,"  he  says,  "  after  de- 
positing a  certain  number  of  copies  in  the  shops  of 
the  booksellers  of  Madrid,  to  ride  forth,  Testament 
in  hand,  and  endeavour  to  circulate  the  word  of  God 
amongst  the  Spaniards^  not  only  of  the  towns,  but 
of  the  villages — amongst  the  children,  not  only  of 
the  plains,  but  of  the  hills  and  mountains.  I  intended 
to  visit  Old  Castile,  and  to  traverse  the  whole  of 
Galicia  and  the  Asturias, — to  establish  Scripture 
depots  in  the  principal  towns,  and  to  visit  the  peo- 
ple in  secret  and  secluded  spots, — to  talk  to  them 
of  Christ,  to  explain  to  them  the  nature  of  his  book, 
and  to  place  that  book  in  the  hands  of  those  whom 
I  should  deem  capable  of  deriving  benefit  from  it. 
I  was  aware  that  such  a  journey  would  be  attended 
with  considerable  danger,  and  very  possibly  the  fate 
of  St.  Stephen  might  overtake  me ;  but  does  the 
man  deserve  the  name  of  a  follower  of  Christ,  who 
would  shrink  from  danger  of  any  kind  in  the  cause 
of  Him  whom  he  calls  Master  1  ^  He  who  loses  his 
life  for  my  sake,  shall  find  it,'  are  the  words  which 
the  Lord  himself  uttered.  These  words  were  fraught 
with  consolation  to  me,  as  they  doubtless  are  to 
every  one  engaged  in  propagating  the  Gospel,  in 
sincerity  of  heart,  in  savage  and  barbarian  lands."* 

*  The  Bible  in  Spain,  pp.  109,  110. 


200  THE    CLERGY   THE   ENEMIES 

As  might  be  expected,  the  circulation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  the  vernacular  tongue  met  with  violent 
opposition  from  the  Komish  priests.  In  the  then 
unsettled  state  of  Spain,  the  Government  passed  and 
repassed,  at  short  intervals,  into  various  hands. 
Isturitz  had  been  superseded  in  office  by  the  Count 
Ofalia,  a  warm  partizan  of  the  clergy,  and,  conse- 
quently, an  enemy  to  any  measures  calculated  to 
interfere  with  their  influence.  On  his  accession  to 
power,  a  peremptory  prohibition  was  issued  against 
the  sale  of  the  obnoxious  books,  notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  the  British  ambassador  to  prevent  it.  Many 
of  the  Testaments  were  seized  at  the  various  depots 
throughout  the  country,  and  Mr.  Borrow  himself  was 
arrested  and  thrown  into  prison  in  Madrid.  A  strong 
remonstrance,  however,  from  the  British  minister, 
procured  his  liberation,  and  an  apology  for  the  in- 
dignity which  had  been  offered  him.  But  the  violent 
opposition  of  the  priests  was  continued,  and  greatly 
counteracted  his  efforts  in  the  cause  of  truth. 
"Throughout  my  residence  in  Spain,"  he  remarks, 
"  the  clergy  were  the  party  from  which  I  experienced 
the  strongest  opposition  ;  and  it  was  at  their  instiga- 
tion that  the  Government  originally  adopted  those 
measures  which  prevented  any  extensive  circulation 
of  the  sacred  volume  through  the  land.  I  shall  not 
detain  the  course  of  my  narrative  with  reflections  on 


OF  THE   BIBLE   IN   SPAIN.  201 

the  state  of  a  Church,  which,  though  it  pretends  to 
he  founded  on  Scripture,  would  yet  keep  the  light  of 
Scripture  from  all  mankind,  if  possible.  *  *  *  Her 
agents  and  minions  throughout  Spain  exerted  them- 
selves to  the  utmost  to  render  my  labours  abortive, 
and  to  vilify  the  work  which  I  was  attempting  to 
disseminate."  * 

The  efforts  thus  made  for  the  spiritual  enlighten- 
ment of  Spain,  were  not  without  encouraging  results. 
Comparatively  small  as  was  the  number  of  copies 
circulated,  they  served  to  awaken  an  interest  which 
has  continued  to  increase,  and  which  is  at  this 
moment  one  of  those  active  influences  from  which 
the  friend  of  Spain  hopefully  predicts,  at  no  distant 
period,  the  dawn  of  brighter  and  more  prosperous 
days  for  a  fallen,  but  still  glorious,  nation.  An 
important  change  in  the  religious  views  and  character 
of  the  people  has  commenced.  Misgovernment  has, 
to  a  great  extent,  given  way  to  a  more  liberal  and 
enlightened  policy,  under  which  the  influence  of 
superstition. and  its  agents  is  fast  decaying. 

The  following  testimony  of  a  traveller  who  visited 
the  Peninsula  in  1841,  is  full  of  encouragement  to 
the  philanthropist  and  the  Christian,  and  will  furnish 
some  idea  of  the  religious  condition  of  the  country 
at  that  time  : — "  No  one  can  enter  Spain  without 

*  The  Bible  m  Spain,  p.  243. 


202  PRESENT   CONDITION   OF    SPAIN. 

being  struck  with  the  discrepancy  betwixt  his  pre- 
conceived notions  of  the  superstitious  reverence  of 
the  Spanish  lower  orders  for  the  mummeries  of 
Komanism,  and  the  actual  state  of  the  fact.  I  am 
not  acquainted  with  any  part  of  Europe,  in  which 
Popery  is  acknowledged,  where  less  reverence  or 
devotion  is  to  be  observed  among  the  common 
people  in  their  religious  ceremonies ;  and  it  is 
notorious  that  many  superstitious  observances  have 
now  quite  disappeared.  Am  I  gratified  with  this  ? 
I  acknowledge  that  I  am.  Not  that  I  am  prepared 
to  maintain  that  no  religion  at  all  is  in  itself  better 
than  Popery,  but  because,  while  the  influence  of  the 
priesthood  over  the  minds  of  the  people  remained 
unimpaired,  the  introduction  of  the  Bible  generally 
into  Spain  was  almost  hopeless.  A  new  era  in  the 
religious  history  of  the  Peninsula  has  begun.  Spirit- 
ual despotism,  the  most  dangerous  enemy  which  the 
truth  has  to  encounter,  is  no  more ;  and  civil 
despotism  is  quite  incapable  of  excluding  the  Bible 
entirely  from  the  land.  Now  that  the  anathemas 
of  the  priesthood  are  disregarded,  the  people  are 
eager  to  receive  the  Word  of  God ;  and  experience 
everywhere  proves,  that  where  a  people  are  desirous 
of  welcoming  the  light,  not  all  the  most  stringent 
regulations  of  the  most  bigotted  and  tyrannical  of 
despotisms  can  keep  them  altogether  in  darkness. 


BIBLES   SUPPLIED   BY   SMUGGLERS.  203 

Bibles  are  at  this  moment  pouring  into  Spain,  in 
spite  of  corregidor,  alcalde,  and  aduanero.  The 
channel  of  illumination  is  indeed  a  strange  one, 
but  God  often  employs  strange  agents  for  his  holy 
purposes  ;  and  we  observe  the  worst  passions  of  men, 
yea,  the  very  devices  of  the  devil,  invented  for  very 
different  ends,  directly,  though  unintentionally,  work- 
ing to  promote  the  glory  of  the  Most  High,  and 
to  advance  the  Redeemer's  kingdom.  The  fierce 
and  reckless  smuggler  is  at  present  the  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  the  Lord  employed  for  blessing  the 
coasts  of  Spain  with  God's  precious  Word!  A 
strange  evangelist,  but  a  successful  one  !  The  very 
fact  that  he  finds  the  illicit  trade  in  Bibles  a  profit- 
able one,  and  capable  of  repaying  the  toils  and 
dangers  incident  to  his  desperate  profession,  is  a 
fact  which  speaks  volumes  for  the  desire  of  the 
Spanish  people  to  receive  the  hated  and  forbidden 
book — hated  by  priests,  and  forbidden  by  tyrants — 
but,  God  be  thanked,  beloved  and  cherished  by  all 
who  know  its  value,  and  earnestly  sought  after  by 
thousands  more,  who  have  a  faint  and  indefinite 
conception  of  the  infinite  worth  and  priceless  treasure 
which  they  seek.  Bless,  O  Lord,  thy  holy  Word, 
even   from   such   unholy   hands !"  *      After   a   few 

*  Rev.  Wm.  Robertson's  Journal  of  a  Clergyman  during 
a  visit  to  the  Peninsula  in  1841,  pp.  186,  187. 


204  THE   PEOPLE   OF   SPAIN 

remarks  upon  the  then  political  state  of  the  country, 
Mr.  Robertson  continues  :  "  In  this  state  of  things, 
and  in  the  present  condition  of  the  public  mind 
in  the  Peninsula,  there  is  a  glorious  field  for 
missionary  enterprise  opening  before  us.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  people  of  Spain  would 
gladly  receive  the  messengers  of  the  truth.  This 
has  been  sufficiently  proved  in  the  only  instance 
where  it  has  been  attempted,  viz.,  as  before  men- 
tioned, in  the  case  of  Mr.  Rule  at  Cadiz.*  It  is  also 
a  fact  worthy  of  observation  that,  in  various  parts  of 
Spain,  vast  numbers  are  strongly  prepossessed  in 
favour  of  Protestantism,  without  so  much  as  know- 
ing what  it  is.  Many  even  go  so  far  as  to  call 
themselves  Protestants,  though  all  they  know  of  that 
name  is  that  it  implies  something  hostile  to  Popery. 
Wherefore,  if  the  eye  of  the  Christian  tactician 
carefully  examines  the  hitherto  impregnable  defences 
of  the  *man  of  sin'  in  Spain,  he  will  not  fail  to 
perceive  that  a  wide  and  practicable  breach  is  already 
made." 

The  prohibition  complained  of  in  the  former  of 
these  extracts,  has  not  yet  been  repealed,  although 

*  This  gentleman  had  been  labouring  zealously  as  a 
Wesleyan  minister  in  Gibraltar,  whence  he  went  to  Cadiz, 
and  there  preached  the  Gospel,  for  a  time,  to  crowds  of 
willing  and  attentive  hearers. 


PREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.       205 

its  violation  is  conuived  at  by  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment.* Besides  those  which  continue  to  be  im- 
ported by  the  smugglers,  large  numbers  of  Bibles 
and  Testaments  are  introduced,  chiefly  from  England, 
by  the  liberality  and  Christian  enterprise  of  private 
individuals  ;  and  the  eagerness  with  which  they  were 
received  and  perused  in  1841,  has  in  no  wise 
diminished;  but  as  for  open  and  tolerated  Pro- 
testantism, as  yet,  there  is  none  in  Spain,  the  only 
places  in  which  the  celebration  of  Protestant  worship 
is  permitted,  being  the  houses  of  the  foreign  Pro- 
testant ambassadors  and  consuls.  < 

Such  is  a  brief,  and,  from  our  limits,  necessarily 
imperfect  sketch  of  the  history  of  Protestantism  in 
Spain — imperfect,  yet,  we  trust,  copious  enough  to 
give  the  general  reader  a  sufiiciently  extensive  and 
accurate  knowledge  of  this  painful  but  interesting 
subject.  Within  the  brief  compass  of  these  pages, 
there  was  room  only  to  narrate  facts,  and  not  to 
indulge  in  reflections  to  which  they  were  calculated 
to  give  rise.  But  without  such  reflections,  the  facts 
themselves  will  sufficiently  illustrate  the  essential 
and  unchanging  spirit  of  that  system  of  iniquity 
which  is  alike  destructive  of  the  temporal  and  spi- 

*  The  author  makes  this  statement  on  the  authority  of  a 
friend  who  has  lately  returned  from  a  lengthened  residence 
in  Spain. 


206  POPERY   ESSENTIALLY   THE   SAME, 

ritual  well-being  of  man.  Yet  they  form  but  a 
small  part  of  the  black  catalogue  of  its  crimes  which 
history  has  chronicled,  and  which  demonstrate,  far 
more  convincingly  than  human  reasoning  or  elo- 
quence could  do,  its  ruinous  tendencies  and  infernal 
origin.  Though  disarmed  of  many  of  its  stings,  by 
the  increase  of  sound  and  enlightened  education 
amongst  many  of  the  subjects  of  its  former  tyranny, 
Popery  has  neither  lost  nor  modified  one  feature  of 
its  essential  wickedness.  The  history  of  its  past 
persecutions,  spreading  over  the  long  ages  since  it 
first  jisurped  the  government  of  human  consciences, 
furnishes  the  best  illustration  of  its  unchanging 
character.  Victims  are  no  longer  immolated  on  its 
blazing  shambles;  but  this  proves  only  the  want 
of  power,  and  not  the  extinction  of  its  old  per- 
secuting spirit.  Its  principles  remain  unaltered. 
In  the  words  of  one  who  suffered  from  its  intoler- 
ance, "The  cruel  deeds  of  the  Romish  Church  are 
nothing  but  a  republication,  in  blood,  of  the  articles 
of  her  Faith,  stamped  in  every  copy  of  the  decrees 
of  Trent."  *  The  spirit  which  consigned  the 
Spanish  martyrs  in  the  sixteenth  century  to  the 
flames  in  Valladolid  and  Seville,  is  the  same  which, 
if  it  dared,  would  now  wreak  a  similar  vengeance  on 

*  Blanco  WMte's  Poor  MmCs  Preservative  against  Popery, 
p.  166. 


BUT  HASTENING   TO    ITS    FALL.  207 

the  Madiai  and  their  fellow-sufferers  for  the  truth 
in  the  Italian  States.  But  its  palmy  days  of  power 
have  gone  by  for  ever,  and  its  ultimate  doom  is 
accelerated,  and  predicted  anew,  by  every  fresh  un- 
folding in  the  world's  progressive  enlightenment. 


APPENDIX 


In  the  preceding  pages,  the  cases  of  two  of  the  most 
distinguished  individuals  prosecuted  by  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  in  the  16th  century,  were  omitted,  as 
having  only  a  collateral,  and  not  a  direct,  connection 
with  the  narrative  of  the  Reformation — the  latter 
especially.  It  would  be  wrong,  however,  to  pass 
them  by  unnoticed,  since  the  first  will  furnish  to  the 
reader  another  instance  of  proof  that  the  friends  of 
the  reformed  doctrines,  amongst  the  Spanish  clergy, 
were  not  confined  to  the  lower  or  middle  ranks ; 
whilst  the  second  will  afford  a  striking  example  of 
the  cruelty  and  injustice  of  the  Holy  Ofiice,  as  the 
unholy  instrument  of  the  private  vengeance  and 
malignant  enmity  of  Philip  II. 

The  first  case  was  that  of  Don  Bartolom^  Carranza 
p 


210  APPENDIX. 

de  Miranda,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  and  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  victims  of  the  Inquisition,  during 
the  period  of  its  history  which  has  occupied  our 
attention.  He  was  born  at  Miranda  de  Arga,  a 
small  town  in  the  kingdom  of  Navarre,  in  the  year 
1503.  At  twelve  years  of  age,  he  was  received  into 
the  College  of  St.  Eugenius,  an  institution  dependent 
upon  the  University  of  Alcala.  In  1520,  he  took 
the  habit  of  a  Dominican,  in  the  convent  of  Venalec, 
in  the  Alcarria,  whence  he  removed  to  the  College  of 
St.  Stephen  of  Salamanca,  and  soon  after  to  that  of 
St.  Gregory  of  Valladolid.  In  1539,  he  went  to 
Rome,  to  attend  a  general  chapter  of  his  order,  and, 
whilst  there,  obtained  the  degree  of  Doctor  in 
Theology,  from  Pope  Paul  III.  On  his  return  to 
Spain,  in  the  following  year,  he  was  appointed  Bishop 
of  Cuzco  j  and  in  1545,  was  sent  by  the  Emperor 
Charles  Y.  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  where  he  re- 
mained for  three  years.  In  1651,  the  Council  was 
again  convened,  and  Carranza  was  sent  to  attend  it, 
furnished  with  full  powers  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Toledo. 

In  1554,  the  alliance  between  Philip  II.  and  Mary 
of  England  being  settled,  Carranza  came  to  this 
country,  to  aid  Cardinal  Pole  in  preparing  the 
kingdom  to  return  to  the  Eomish  faith.  During 
his  residence  in  England,  he  took  a  prominent  part 


APPENDIX.  211 

in  the  prosecution  of  those  who  adhered  to  the  Pro- 
testant religion,  the  most  distinguished  of  those 
against  whom  his  hostility  was  directed  being  Arch- 
bishop Cranmer  and  Martin  Bucer.  In  1557,  he  left 
England  for  the  Netherlands,  where  he  was  one  of 
the  most  violent  opponents  of  the  reformed  opinions. 
.On  the  death  of  Cardinal  Siliceo,  Archbishop  of 
Toledo,  in  1558,  Carranza  succeeded  to  the  vacant  see. 
His  doctrinal  sentiments,  however,  had  been  secretly 
undergoing  a  change,  the  earliest  indication  of  which 
was  gladly  made  use  of  by  those  whom  envy  and 
jealousy  had  made  his  enemies,  A  few  months  after 
his  exaltation  to  the  archiepiscopal  throne,  he  was 
denounced  to  the  Inquisition,  as  secretly  holding  the 
Lutheran  doctrines.  Besides  many  objectionable 
sentiments  in  the  Christian  Catechism,  which  he  had 
previously  published,  the  fact  that  so  many  of  the 
leading  men  amongst  the  Spanish  Protestants  had 
been  educated  by  him,  was  taken  as  strong  proof  of 
his  unsoundness  in  the  faith.  His  accusers,  more- 
over, alleged  that,  during  his  residence  in  England, 
he  had  publicly  taught  most  dangerous  views  of  the 
doctrine  of  justification,  one  of  them  declaring 
that  "Carranza  had  preached  like  Philip  Me- 
lanchthon." 

After  a  long  series  of  tedious  examinations  and 
intentional  delays,  spreading  over  seven  years,  during 


212  APPENDIX. 

whicli  time  the  Archbishop  was  kept  a  close  prisoner 
in  Valladolid,  the  cause  was  transferred  to  Kome, 
whither  the  accused  was  sent  at  the  same  time. 
Pius  v.,  who  then  occupied  the  Papal  chair,  treated 
Carranza  with  much  kindness,  and  examined  the 
documents  which  had  been  sent  from  Spain  with 
great  fairness,  and  anxiety  to  ascertain  the  truth. 
After  considerable  delay,  Pius  prepared  the  definitive 
sentence,  in  which  he  declared  that  the  accusation 
had  not  been  proved,  and  accordingly  acquitted  the 
prelate.  He  ordered  that  the  passages  in  the 
Catechismy  to  which  objection  had  been  taken,  should 
be  altered  by  the  author,  who  was  at  the  same  time 
enjoined  to  revise  his  other  works,  and  to  expunge 
from  them  anything  that  could  be  considered  as 
favourable  to  the  Lutheran  heresy. 

This  judgment  was  alike  displeasing  to  Philip  and 
to  the  Inquisitors  ;  the  latter  were  even  suspected 
of  having  poisoned  Pius,  who  died  soon  after  his 
sentence  had  reached  Spain.  The  new  Pope  was 
Gregory  XIII. — a  man  after  their  own  heart  The 
trial  was  resumed,  and  the  judgment  of  the  former 
Pontiff  reversed.  Carranza  was  found  violently 
suspected  of  heresy  ;  the  prohibition  of  his  Catechism 
was  confirmed,  and  he  himself  was  ordered  to  abjure 
all  heresy  in  general,  and  sixteen  Lutheran  proposi- 
tions in  particular.      In   addition   to   this,  he  was 


APPENDIX.  213 

sentenced  to  be  suspended  for  five  years  from  the 
exercise  of  his  archiepiscopal  functions,  and  to  be 
confined  during  that  time  in  the  Dominican  convent 
of  Orvietta,  in  Tuscany.  But  death  came  to  his 
relief.  A  few  days  after  the  sentence  was  passed,  he 
sickened  and  died,  worn  out  by  the  hardships  and 
anxieties  of  eighteen  years'  imprisonment,  and  was 
buried  in  the  choir  of  the  convent  of  Minerva,  in 
Kome.  Comparatively  severe  as  had  been  the 
sentence,  it  had  not  satisfied  the  Inquisitors,  who, 
had  he  lived  to  undergo  it,  had  prepared  a  fresh 
persecution ! 

The  prosecution  of  Carranza  gave  rise  to  several 
others.  Eight  bishops,  and  several  doctors  of 
theology,  many  of  whom  had  taken  part,  as  the 
champions  of  orthodoxy,  at  the  Council  of  Trent, 
were  compromised  by  some  of  the  evidence  which 
had  been  adduced  at  the  trial  of  the  primate.  They 
escaped,  however,  with  humiliating  recantations,  and 
the  performance  of  slight  penances. 

The  other  case  to  which  we  referred  was  the  cele- 
brated trial  of  Antonio  Perez,  Minister  and  First 
Secretary  of  State  to  Philip  IP  In  1578,  Juan  de 
Escovedo,  secretary  to  Don  John  of  Austria,  was 
assassinated  in  Madrid,  whither  he  had  been  sent  to 
transact  some  business  for  his  master.  The  circum- 
stances attending  the  murder    are  wrapt  in  much 


214  APPENDIX. 

mystery  ;  but  enough  is  known  to  brand  Philip  as 
its  instigator.  Soon  after  the  death  of  Escovedo, 
Perez  was  arrested,  by  order  of  the  King,  on  the 
ostensible  ground  of  having  hired  the  assassins.  The 
real  cause  of  the  arrest  seems  to  have  been  the  im- 
prudence of  Perez,  in  hinting  the  implication  of 
PhiHp  in  the  death  of  the  secretary.  This  in  itself 
had  been  enough  to  call  forth  the  dark  resentment  of 
the  Spanish  Nero,  had  there  not  been  the  additional 
fact  of  Antonio's  being  looked  upon  with  a  favour- 
able eye  by  the  Princess  of  Evoli — the  object  of 
the  royal  affections — to  excite  his  vengeful  jealousy. 
Some  other  charges,  of  slight  importance,  were 
urged  against  him  at  the  same  time,  to  make  the 
royal  pretext  more  complete.  An  investigation  was 
held,  which  resulted  in  his  being  sentenced  to  two 
years'  imprisonment,  eight  years'  exile  from  the 
court,  and  a  heavy  fine.  Having  escaped  from  the 
prison,  he  succeeded  in  reaching  Aragon,  the  consti- 
tution of  which  kingdom  would  afford  him,  at  least, 
an  impartial  trial.  Philip  issued  an  order  for  his 
arrest,  which  took  place  at  Calatayud,  whence  he  was 
sent  to  the  royal  prison  of  Saragossa ;  notwithstand- 
ing his  claim,  in  virtue  of  the  Aragonese  laws,  to  be 
confined  in  the  prison  of  the  manifestadoes,  and  be 
tried  by  the  Chief  Justice  of  Aragon.  Failing  to 
procure  a  conviction,  even  by  the  unconstitutional 


APPENDIX.  215 

means  which  he  adopted,  of  sending  a  commission  of 
his  own  to  try  the  prisoner,  Philip  had  recourse  to  his 
never-failing  ally — the  Inquisition.  On  the  pretext 
that  Perez  had  corresponded  with  Catherine,  sister 
to  Henry  lY.  of  France,  and  a  Protestant,  the 
Inquisitors  of  Aragon  founded  a  prosecution  for 
heresy,  and  had  the  prisoner  transferred  to  their  own 
dungeons.  Enraged  at  this  breach  of  privilege  and 
infraction  of  the  Aragonese  constitution,  the  people 
rose,  and  released  Perez  by  force  from  the  Inquisi- 
torial prison.  Several  lives  were  lost  in  the  fray. 
No  sooner  did  the  news  of  the  rescue  reach  Madrid, 
than  Philip  despatched  an  army  into  Aragon,  under 
Don  Alphonso  de  Vargas.  At  this  second  and 
greater  violation  of  the  national  privileges,  the  Chief 
Justice  called  upon  the  Aragonese  to  arm  in  defence 
of  their  violated  constitution ;  but  the  call  being 
only  partially  obeyed,  the  hasty  and  ill-provided  levies 
were  driven  before  the  royal  troops,  and  the  Chief 
Justice  himself  taken  and  executed.  In  the  midst 
of  these  disturbances,  Perez  succeeded  in  escaping 
over  the  Pyrenees,  into  Bearne.  Foiled  of  their 
prey,  the  Inquisitors  gratified  their  impotent  re- 
venge, by  confiscating  his  property,  devoting  his 
children  and  grand-children  to  infamy,  and  con- 
demning himself  to  death,  as  "  a  formal  heretic,  a 
convicted  Huguenot,  and  an  obstinate  impenitent, 


216  APPENDIX. 

to  be  relaxed  [i.  e.,  executed]  in  person,  when  he 
could  be  taken,  and  in  the  mean  time  to  suffer  that 
punishment  in  effigy,  with  the  mitre  and  sanbehito." 
He  subsequently  visited  London,  but  ultimately 
settled  in  Paris,  where  he  died,  in  1611,  after  a  long 
series  of  fruitless  efforts  to  procure  the  revocation  of 
his  sentence. 


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